Recently, districts from all over the Tampa Bay area have been moving towards more eco-friendly options for public school transit, which includes electric and hybrid busses.

To further this initiative seven school districts throughout Florida received funding to grow their non diesel bus fleets. The new funding allowed for the purchase of 218 new electric school busses throughout Florida. Pinellas County is among these districts and purchased 20 new electric school busses for this year.

Pinellas County received a $5.5 million grant from Florida’s Diesel Emission Mitigation Program to purchase hybrid and electric busses. The addition of these new busses has propelled alternative energy buses as the lead mode of transportation. The distract has gone on record saying, “77 percent of its school bus fleet will now run on either propane or electric power.” So far, the new busses have been well received by drivers and students.

Pinellas County bus driver, Randy Reynolds, raved about the new busses saying “It’s a very quiet bus, so it’s a plus for us because we can hear the kids, what’s going on inside the bus, and also for emergency vehicles. We have to listen for them.”

But that’s not all, electric busses have also proven to be more efficient as well as green. The average gasoline school bus has a fuel efficiency of 5.8 miles per gallon (diesel bus – 7 mpg), while an electric school bus gets 22.5 miles per gallon equivalent. Also, electric vehicles in general have less maintenances costs than the average gas-power car or bus. This is partly due to having fewer moving parts than a standard combustion engine.

There are a variety of benefits for staff and students in increased use of electric buses. Lower Carbon emissions, lower bus maintenance costs, lower fuel cost and a quieter engine ware among the reasons this alternative provides a safe and reliable option for districts.

Unfortunately, electric vehicles don’t come without drawbacks. For example, electric busses are 2.5-3 times more expensive than their diesel counterpart. The average gasoline powered bus costs about $120,000 while electric buses costs over $300,000. Furthermore, electric buses take much longer to charge and have a much shorter-range than gas-powered buses.

But some still argue the higher expenses in purchasing an electric bus may be offset by the lowered diesel or gas costs as well as the lower vehicle maintenance costs.

This movement towards more eco-friendly transportation is primarily funded by the recent Volkswagen lawsuit settlement. Volkswagen’s company was sued for lying about the gas mileage on their vehicles which not only defrauded customers, but also cheated environmental laws. This led to a monetary settlement between the company and the state of Florida that has been used to purchase the Pinellas County electric school buses. In turn, these changes have help Florida school districts lower their own carbon footprint.

Additionally, studies have shown that reduction of carbon emissions from school busses have a direct link to a student’s health.

As a result, the goal is not just to lower our greenhouse gasses but to also not endanger students’ health. Studies done by the Harvard school of health have linked CO2 gasses from school buses to student health. “The researchers found that these benefits—including fewer greenhouse gas emissions and reduced rates of adult mortality and childhood asthma,”

However, electric busses are just the first step in going green. According to the Director of the Tampa Bay Clean Cities Coalition (TBCCC) Alex Kolpakov “Only school districts within an air quality priority area designated in the mitigation plan were eligible for this project.”

Pinellas is one of seven districts that qualified for the project, along with Broward, Manatee, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach, and Sarasota County.

Kolpakov went on to say “Electric school buses produce 52% lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than diesel school buses, and 60% lower GHG emissions than gasoline buses. Emission profile of battery-electric vehicles depends heavily on the power generating sources in the region. If electricity is mainly produced from coal, the environmental benefit of battery electric vehicles may be significantly lower,”

This means that if a power company uses high polluting fueling methods, such as coal or gas, electric vehicles will make little effect on their climate.

Here in Florida, most of our electricity is powered by natural gas and nuclear power. This method has less carbon emissions but it’s still not a clean source of energy. Kolpoakov went on to note cleaner sources of energy would be renewable resources such as wind and solar, which may grow over time.

Either way, in achieving the district’s goal to lesson emissions and reduce their carbon footprint, they have taken a step in the right direction. With over 21,000 students riding school buses every day, this will be a great change for our schools. This is a great step to an eco-friendlier schooling transit system and promoting student health. Something that Pinellas County Schools is committed to and strives to achieve each year.