UTTRI has released the Transit Analytics Lab Electric Bus (TALe-Bus) Dashboard, an expandable web-based decision-support platform meant to support transit agencies and planners as they transition from diesel buses to electric buses.
Route-specific forecasts of electric bus energy consumption, fleet size needs, and Replacement Factors (RF), a key measure of the number of electric buses required to preserve current service levels, are provided by TALe-Bus. With actual data from the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), the sophisticated machine learning algorithms of the tool were developed.
There are two interactive modules in TALe-Bus:
Toronto eBus Explorer: Use route-specific RFs to accurately project and analyze the city’s complex bus network, splitting it in fine detail by unique bus model and by seasonal change. Evaluate and determine which specific routes need a boost to the number of vehicles to cover demand and which need an outright one-for-one swap of their existing vehicles.
Custom Scenario Calculator: In order to most accurately estimate energy consumption and replacement requirements of deploying electric buses, please enter your own route information, pertinent operating conditions, and precise bus specifications that you will be operating.
TALe-Bus provides a trove of worthwhile information that is data-driven and can be very helpful in informing your choices. This is so whether you are a transit organization planning a long-overdue update to your fleet, a policymaker weighing possible investments designed to increase sustainability, or a consultant actively engaged on cutting-edge zero-emission projects.