Canada could make every bus in the country electric for a “reasonable” cost and with a “trivial” impact on power generation, research out of Hamilton’s McMaster University has found. 

A national transition would lead to a “substantial” reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, Moataz Mohamed and his coauthor, Hatem Abdelaty, wrote.

However, due to cost concerns, “a lot of people are dismissive of electrification,” says Mohamed, a professor in the school’s department of civil engineering, who also directs the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics. His team’s findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports in November, show “people shouldn’t be.”

“Transit is the best example for electrification,” Mohamed said, because vehicles are scheduled and charging can be planned. Plus, in recent years, he said, battery costs declined, making electrification more affordable.

Mohamed told CBC Hamilton there’s been little research in this field, and most small or medium transit operators lack capacity to study electrification themselves. With that in mind, his team spent about a year using publicly available data to model the costs, electricity needs and emission reductions that would come from bus electrification at a national scale.

Canada would need 17 per cent more buses

A key assumption in the modelling, Mohamed said, is that transit operators would charge buses in depots. Buses with internal combustion engines can be fully refueled in a few minutes, Mohamed said, meaning they’re available to drive most hours of the day. However, electric buses need more time to go back to depots and charge. To accommodate for that without reducing service, he said, operators would need larger fleets. 

His team found there are about 12,191 diesel, hybrid, and natural gas buses operating across Canada. To fully replace internal-combustion-engine fleets, 14,628 battery-electric vehicles — 17 per cent more — would be needed.

The cost of increasing fleet sizes, about $1.73 billion, would make up the majority of the cost of electrification, Mohamed said. Overall, that cost would be about $1.94 billion annually, factoring in electricity costs and emissions-related costs. He noted the estimate does not include potential distribution-related costs such as upgrading electrical equipment near bus depots to draw more power. He said infrastructure usually lasts about 25 years, and buses for about 12 years, so annual costs would come down following initial purchases.

The researchers found national bus electrification would require about 1.255 terawatt-hours more of electricity annually, representing 0.20 per cent of Canada’s total electricity generation. Mohamed called that amount “trivial.”

In contrast, electrifying conventional bus operations would lead to a roughly 93-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1.77 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to 129,747 tonnes. 

Mohamed said that although he’s not an economist, the cost of national electrification seems “very reasonable” and is worth considering in light of the gained emissions reductions.

Hamilton Street Railway not ready to electrify

Electrification is “on the radar” for Hamilton Street Railway (HSR), but there are no formal plans in place, Jeff Poljanski, manager of fleet maintenance with Hamilton’s transit division said.

Right now, Poljanski said, there are 320 vehicles in HSR’s fleet. Two-hundred seventy-six use natural gas, and the rest use diesel. By the end of this year, he said, HSR expects to have fully transitioned its fleet to buses that run on compressed natural gas and produce 20 to 30 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than diesel. That transition has taken about 13 years.

Despite not having a formal plan in place when it comes to zero-emission vehicles, Poljanski said HSR is watching as other operators test battery electric buses and hydrogen fuel options. The service’s master plan includes the opening of a new bus garage in the fall and while it will not have electric charging equipment, Poljanski said it will include space for that to be installed.

At this point, Poljanski said, he expects the upfront costs of electrification would be a barrier for HSR. He said it is possible to procure battery electric buses from Metrolinx.

If Hamilton’s city council were to direct HSR to electrify, the next step would be to work with experts at McMaster or elsewhere to do a feasibility study, he said. In the meantime, “I think we have a good greenhouse gas reduction plan.”

While not directly related to HSR, Hamilton’s overall emission-reduction efforts could be impacted by ongoing budget discussions. In a General Issues Committee meeting Feb. 13, councillors discussed a motion by Coun. Mike Spadafora (Ward 14) which proposed savings, including by deferring $2.5 million in spending on a climate action plan to 2027. The vote was defeated 9-6.

With Mohamed’s team having shown the feasibility of electrification, the researcher says it’s up to elected officials to decide what to do next.

He said he’d like to see financial incentives to encourage the process.

He noted there would be other logistical questions to answer, such as what skills workers need to run electric buses, if the amount of workers needed to maintain electric fleets changes, and what updates might be needed to union agreements.

To help answer those and other questions, Mohamed said he’d love to see public funding for a transit network to pilot electrification and make all the data freely available to teams like his.

“The idea is to spread knowledge and hopefully we have contributed to a potentially better future,” Mohamed said. “I imagine my son and my daughter and their kids hopefully will be riding on an electric bus in the future.”