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June 26, 2008
$54.6 Million in Fuel, Yet the Engines Continue to Idle.
SuggestionBoxLA to Metro - No Idling on Layover!
Rising fuel costs is impacting everybody, even mass transit customers, according to the Daily News.
Transit Agencies use a variety of fuels ranging from diesel to CNG to electricity to Propane to gasoline.
The situation is so dire that the State of California has a mechanism in place to set aside money from the State budget to send to transportation when fuel prices spike.
While costs of different fuels vary, the markets for all are volatile leaving our Transit authorities scrambling for ways to fund for the forecasted increase in transportation expenses.
Through it all, the simplest way to reduce fuel costs is stubbornly overlooked and requests are ignored.
Simply turn the engines off when the vehicle are not in operation.
And yet, The Orange Line buses run from the early hours, throughout the day and into the night, even after they return to the yard and are awaiting service and maintenance. Finally, when they are put away for the night they are turned off.
When asked why the Orange Line buses are left idling in spite of the Metro's policy against idling on layover, Metro Operations and Supervisors explain that the rule doesn't apply to the Orange Line.
When pressed, Metro Supervisors offer explanations such as "Engines that burn CNG run differently and you can't just turn them off and then expect them to restart." Another Supervisor explained that the buses burn clean fuel so it doesn't matter. A driver confided that issues with "cheap" batteries meant that the buses needed to be started while in the yard so that if they didn't start, maintenance could immediately respond and that they were told by their Supervisors to leave the Orange Line buses running while on layover so as to avoid stalling the buses.
Through it all, the Metro's cavalier behavior and lack of responsiveness demonstrates contempt for our air, contempt for our money and contempt for us as a community.
Shutting down the engines on layover (10% estimated reduction in overall run time) would save the Metro approximately $5 Million this year.
Metro, are you listening?
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Good Post Steven.
My suggestion would be that if these busses were converted to plug in hybrid, and were plugged in and charging during their lay overs, the mileage would be vastly improved, and fuel costs lowered even more. This would eventually pay for the costs of the conversions, and plug-in facilities at the lay over points.
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Your attitude seems to be just as bullheaded as Metro's. If you don't care about the reasons they give, it doesn't really motivate them to explain.
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LOL, they think they're trains!
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Paul: yes, exactly.
First, 10% of time spent on layover is unrealistically high. And anyway, the bus uses a lot more fuel during drive time than during layover time. Plus, what's the time and gas cost of driving the maintenance personnel out to jump start the bus? What's the time and equipment cost to buy different buses or components to get them to start reliably wherever? These are the real questions that should be asked.
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A 10% layover estimate (6 minutes out of every hour?) is veeerrry low and allows for fuel use variables. Each bus comes with an operator. The Bus Operators are represented by a very strong union. The Orange Line trip takes 40 - 45 minutes and has a 12 minute layover on the end.
Perhaps the Metro would like to release the actual layover times and idling policy for the Orange Line and for the Metro as a whole. Perhaps the Metro would like to respond to the napping/idling 750 Operator at Universal. (20 minutes on top of a 53 minute run)
They're wasting fuel, polluting our air, all because it's simpler than...supervising the Operators? providing equipment that simply works? setting a standard for responsible performance and then meeting that standard?
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@anthonyt
Finally someone that asks the question. Where do these numbers come from? And are these figured for natural gas? Or are they for unleaded gasoline?
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Still, Metro spent $54.6 million this year on fuel - up 3percent from two years ago when it spent $53 million.
"The agency also expects to spend an additional 14 percent - or $7.4 million - on fuel next fiscal year as it adds more buses, said Michelle Lopes Caldwell, Metro's executive officer for management and budget.
The agency bought 95 buses using CNG this year and plans to buy 120 next year. Nearly all buses in its 2,556-unit fleet run on CNG at a price Metro officials locked in a year ago at 90 cents a therm.
The current market rate is $1.21.
"We're in good shape with fuel," said Marc Littman, Metro spokesman."