Philly School District Buys Electric School Buses

PHILADELPHIA — Transportation for School District of Philadelphia students is going green, as the district bought some electric school buses, making the first of their kind in Pennsylvania.

The district Tuesday announced it acquired five electric school buses for the 2021-22 school year.

The district purchased the LionC buses from Lion Electric, a leading manufacturer of zero-emission school buses, with nearly 400 vehicles on the road and seven million miles driven.

These 48-passenger buses with wheelchair lifts are all-electric and produce zero emissions, with a range of up to 125 miles on a single charge.

School buses are particularly well-suited for transitioning to electric buses due to their duty cycle, low mileage routes and frequent stops, which creates significant wear and tear on diesel vehicles.

Electric school buses have fewer moving parts, making them much more affordable to operate, with approximately 60 percent less maintenance cost and 80 percent lower energy cost.

Getting the buses was made possible with the support of the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) and its commitment to continue expanding the electric bus fleet by purchasing five per year to replace older diesel buses.

Through the District’s sustainability plan GreenFutures, transportation services is committed to replacing its fleet of older diesel school buses with new technologies that focus on low emissions, improved fuel economy and safety for students and drivers.

The Biden Administration has proposed replacing 20 percent of the school bus fleet in the United States, converting approximately 100,000 units out of 500,000 total units, with electric buses as part of the American Jobs Plan.

Replacing gasoline and diesel buses with electric buses addresses climate change and can help children’s health. An electric school bus replacing a diesel school bus is the equivalent of removing 23 tons of greenhouse gases per year.

According to the EPA, transportation accounts for nearly one-third of all emissions, which is the highest of any sector, and heavy-duty transportation is about one-quarter of those emissions. Deploying electric school buses will cut down on respiratory contaminants in the air, ultimately improving community health while also eliminating noise pollution.

"We’re excited to acquire these buses and continue our GreenFutures work to identify more efficient ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint," said Danielle Floyd, general manager of Transportation Services for the School District of Philadelphia. "While we’ve previously purchased clean diesel buses to replace our aging fleet, we are proud to be the first school district in the Commonwealth to begin investing in all-electric buses, providing not only climate and health benefits for our community, but allowing students to benefit from having a quiet, more relaxed ride."