Award winning New Zealand family-owned bus and tourism company, Tranzit Group whose head office remains in Wairarapa, converted the bus from diesel to electric in its Masterton workshop in a Southern Hemisphere first in 2021. The. double deck electric bus that was successfully converted from diesel has returned to Wellington to resume services on the Metlink network following successful trials on a series of Auckland bus routes.
After transporting passengers in Wellington since January, the “Repower Bus” received a temporary bright yellow make-over and new livery thanks to Mercury and was driven north to Auckland. Tranzit’s Director of Transport and Operations Keven Snelgrove said the bus then spent a week doing trials on Auckland’s widely used bus routes such as along the Northern Busway to Albany, the Hibiscus Coast and inner-city routes.
He said Tranzit was keen to understand how it would perform in a different environment to Wellington and see if the trials could show that repowered electric double deck 3-axle buses could be a viable public transport option for Auckland in the future.
“At Tranzit we operate a fleet of 2,000 vehicles throughout New Zealand including more than 100 BCI diesel single and double-decker buses. By successfully converting one of these to 100% electric in a Southern Hemisphere first in our Masterton workshop, we have found a solution to keep this fleet running, even when diesel-powered public transport is planned to be phased out.”
“By trialling our Repower Bus in Auckland, we wanted to demonstrate its technical and operational viability, which may allow government agencies or regional councils to balance environmental and financial considerations when making future fleet decisions and show that this type of retro-fitting can be done and can provide an alternative to convert relatively new diesel buses to zero emissions.”
Keven said the Auckland trials showed the Repower Bus reliably achieved 230km in service and when using the dual plug charging at 240wK (close to 400amps) this enabled a charge of around 45 minutes. Keven said 230km equates to 115 litres of diesel savings and 299kgs of carbon emission savings. Interestingly, when in Auckland, the Repower Bus had only 16% brake regeneration which is lower than what is achieved in Wellington (30%) due to the capital city’s hilly topography.
Tranzit is now working on identifying more charger locations that best meets its requirements and to maximise the vehicle use. Maybe we will see electric buses on the local Tranzit routes?
