Alternative Fuels
Transit agencies are increasingly looking to alternatives to traditional fuels to lower emissions and improve the air quality and environment. The resources in this topic guide will assist them with planning, decisionmaking and funding.
National RTAP Resources
National RTAP/FTA Low No Emissions Program Grant Writing webinar, 2018
National RTAP's Used Oil Recycling: Getting Extra Mileage Out of Your Motor Oil technical brief, 2014
FTA Resources
FTA's Low or No Emission Vehicle Program 5339(c) webpage includes information on the FTA grant and technical assistance webinars and reports
FTA’s Zero-Emission Bus Evaluation Results: King County Metro Battery Electric Buses evaluation compared three electric buses to a hybrid fleet, diesel fleet, and trolley fleet, 2018
Additional Resources
Carnegie Mellon University's Which Alternative Fuel Technology is Best for Transit Buses, 2017
Center for Transportation and the Environment's (CTE) Battery Electric Buses 101 presentation from APTA Sustainability Workshop, 2017
Eastern Transportation Knowledge Network's (ETKN) Transportation Sustainability Guide provides a number of resources on fuels and emissions
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) State and Local Transportation Resources webpage contains regulations, guidance and calculators
Frontier Group, PIRG and Environment America’s Electric Buses Clean Transportation for Healthier Neighborhoods and Cleaner Air, 2018
ICF International's Small System Alternative Fuel Strategies Guidance Document, 2017
National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Fuel Cell Buses in U.S. Transit Fleets, 2017 and bus evaluation publications
TCRP's Battery Electric Buses—State of the Practice, 2018
TCRP's Quantifying Transit’s Impact on GHG Emissions and Energy Use—The Land Use Component, 2015
http://nationalrtap.org/Resource-Library/Advanced-Search/?fid=753
US Department of Energy's (DOE) Alternative Fuels Data Center Public Transit Vehicles webpage provides statistics, case studies, reports, videos and presentations
US PIRG's Paying for Electric Buses provides case studies of how agencies have funded electric buses and equations to calculate purchase, financing, and operational costs, 2019
Thank you to the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) for assistance in selection of resources for this topic guide.
Updated January 30, 2019