The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) recently released “A Report on Worldwide Hydrogen Bus Demonstrations, 2002-2007,” a survey of transit agencies, and their partners, about their experience in placing fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion (ICE) engine buses into daily revenue service.  The report was authored for FTA by Fuel Cells 2000’s parent organization, Breakthrough Technologies Institute, and the Center for Transportation Excellence (CTE).

The authors interviewed participants at hydrogen bus demonstration and deployment sites in North America, Europe (CUTE & HyFLEET: CUTE), Asia and Australia.  Interview participants were pleased with relative ease in deploying hydrogen buses in revenue service.  They were also impressed with the progress made in fuel cell development for vehicles, and how the lessons learned from earlier fuel cell bus trials have been successfully incorporated into the next generation of fuel cell design.  Fuel cell durability has increased from generation to generation, and participants would like to see further increases in durability so that a fuel cell bus can last 12-15 years, same as a diesel bus.  Alternatively, fuel cells could be made less expensive to allow replacement, same as is done with diesel engine rebuilds/replacements.

Limited range posed an issue for some transit agencies, requiring buses to return to the depot mid-shift for refueling.  Hybrid fuel cell buses, however, offered a much greater range, and all participants believe that hybridization will be necessary for future fuel cell and hydrogen ICE buses.  Battery technology, however, was very unreliable in the current generation of hybrid hydrogen vehicles.  Supporting components also need to be ruggedized for transit use.  Hydrogen infrastructure failures shut down some fueling stations, putting buses out of service for prolonged periods.  Some interview participants felt this was because some of the equipment had been adapted from other fueling technologies, and need to be developed specifically for hydrogen use.

To learn more about the findings, the 57-page report can be downloaded free from the FTA’s website, also linked above.