Accelerating New York Fuel Cell Bus & Hydrogen Infrastructure Deployments

This project will put two fuel-cell electric buses (FCEB) in MTA service out of Gun Hill Depot in the Bronx, demonstrating that hydrogen is a feasible, efficient, and cost-effective zero-emissions solution and thereby accelerating zero-emission vehicle adoption to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and beyond. FCEBs provide two major advantages compared to the primary alternative, battery-electric buses: longer range and faster fueling. FCEB have shown operating range upwards of 300 miles, where battery electric buses have struggled to reach 150 miles in MTA service. Hydrogen fueling can fuel in 5-10 minutes per bus from a consolidated fuel island, compared to multi-hour charge times and the need to install hundreds of chargers and dispensers and city scale new power supply for battery buses.

This project will deploy 2 sustainable, quiet reliable 40' New Flyer FCEBs powered by an 85kw fuel cell power module with a range of over 300 miles. The station will be able to fuel up to 35 FCEBs in as little as 6 minutes per bus; and the buses and fueling station will have software and communications capabilities to monitor operations in rea-time. The MTA will operate the buses on 8 routes serving multiple disadvantages communities throughout the Bronx.