Energy Savings Strategies for Transit Agencies (2013)

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55 • Reducing building energy use—Transit agencies have adopted many of the strategies that have successfully been used to reduce energy use in commercial build- ings, including purchasing energy-efficient lighting, computers, and electronics; replacing heating, ventila- tion, and air conditioning systems, and implementing energy management systems to identify cost-effective improvements. Several agencies have undertaken these improvements to achieve green building certification for their facilities. • Providing commute alternatives, reducing waste, and buying green—These diverse strategies all work to reduce indirect energy use—energy that transit agencies are responsible for but do not pay for out-of-pocket. A growing number of transit agencies have taken steps to reduce this energy use to meet sustainability goals and improve their public image by providing employee transit passes, encouraging carpooling, installing low- flow water fixtures, implementing workplace recycling programs, and using recycled construction materials. • Generating renewable energy—Agencies have begun to take advantage of large rights-of-way or roofs on facilities to generate their own electricity and use it to power their own facilities or sell it back to the grid. In addition to implementing individual strategies, agen- cies have begun to look at their entire energy portfolios to strategically consider how to manage their energy use. They are crafting sustainability plans with energy-related goals, implementing environmental management systems, and col- lecting and analyzing data on electricity use and fuel effi- ciency in order to understand their energy needs and identify areas for improvement. These comprehensive strategies can not only identify new opportunities and refine existing pro- grams, they can also engage all divisions within an agency in energy conservation efforts. Agencies can use resources such as APTA’s Sustainability Guidelines or reports from peer agencies for guidance in assessing energy use. Even at some agencies where a comprehensive assessment of energy use would be prohibitively expensive, staff has analyzed individual opportunities to assess payback periods incor- porating energy savings or the net present value of possible investments. Nevertheless, agencies find the cost of some energy- saving techniques to be a barrier to implementation. With a large price premium for many alternative fuel vehicles and As energy prices rise, budgets shrink, and governments adopt policies to address environmental issues and increase energy independence, transit agencies face pressure to provide exten- sive transit service to the public while also reducing energy use. Transit agencies use a significant amount of energy for vehicle propulsion—in 2009, transit agencies used more than one billion gallons of fuel and more than six billion kilowatt hours of electricity to power vehicles, and also consumed energy in their non-revenue fleets, at their maintenance facili- ties, for new construction, and in administration buildings and stations that require heating, cooling, and electricity. Transit agencies also use energy that is embodied in materials, such as the energy used to manufacture vehicles. Transit agencies across the country, ranging from large agencies operating rail systems in major metropolitan areas to small agencies operating on-demand services in rural areas, are developing and implementing measures to reduce energy use. Nearly every survey respondent reported that their transit agency is working to save energy through a variety of strategies, including: • Purchasing new vehicles or retrofitting the current fleet to improve fuel efficiency—Agencies are using or pilot- ing battery electric buses, hydrogen fuel cell buses, and hybrid electric buses, and finding new ways to reduce the weight and power requirements of these vehicles. Agencies operating rail are beginning to deploy wayside energy storage systems to reuse the energy generated through braking. • Reducing idling—Whether through driver training, tech- nology, or through changing service design, reducing idling is a common aim of transit agencies, given that idling wastes fuel (and money) unnecessarily. • Purchasing light-duty hybrid vehicles or reducing the size of non-revenue fleets—Administrative and maintenance vehicles also use substantial amounts of energy, and many of these vehicles are passenger vehicles for which hybrid replacements are both available and affordable. • Increasing the efficiency of stations and stops—Transit agencies have unique opportunities to reduce energy use at stations and stops through energy-efficient lighting and escalators, solar panels on the roofs of bus stops that sup- ply electricity for lighting, and innovative station designs. Stations and stops also provide an opportunity to promote energy-efficient technologies to the many members of the public that use these facilities every day. chapter six CONCLUSIONS

56 green building strategies, transit agencies have to be creative in finding sources of funds or financing arrangements that either allow for a third party to provide some of the required upfront costs or that allow for those costs to be spread out over time and paid for by the energy savings themselves. Federal grant programs have played an important role in helping agen- cies to pilot new technologies or implement proven ones that may otherwise have been out of reach. Agencies profiled for the case examples further emphasized the importance of these types of funding sources. All four agencies have taken advan- tage of grant funding opportunities at the state and federal level, and many have also sought innovative partnerships with utility firms, waste haulers, non-profits, and the private sector. Survey respondents also mentioned as a barrier the long time period that it takes to realize benefits from energy-saving pro- grams. Some of these innovative partnerships can overcome this barrier by allowing transit agencies to pay the up-front costs of energy-saving strategies using long-term cost savings. Agencies also cited as a barrier inadequate staff exper- tise and the lack of information about strategy effectiveness. Some agencies mentioned that they have overcome these barriers by learning from peer agencies in determining which strategies to pursue; however, it is clear that further research and better information on energy-saving strategies will help address these challenges. Specifically, transit agencies are interested in: • Benchmarking their own activities and progress against other agencies to help determine what energy reduc- tions are reasonable and achievable. • Tools to help evaluate energy savings and analyze ben- efits and costs from strategies over time. The actual amount of savings achieved through any one action can vary greatly depending on its context; therefore, tools that help agencies to identify and account for their sav- ings are important. • Easy and inexpensive strategies, particularly for smaller transit agencies. These agencies may have less flexibility or ability to pursue new strategies because they operate limited services on smaller budgets and need guidance on affordable strategies that apply to on-demand and small bus services. • Information about funding opportunities and the inno- vative ways that transit agencies (or other organiza- tions) are able to obtain funds for energy savings. This could include state and local level partnerships and partnerships with private-sector entities. • Best management practices that encourage agency- wide buy-in to energy efficiency efforts, ensure effec- tive strategy implementation, foster champions, and reward innovation. The agencies surveyed and profiled for this report have already devoted substantial effort and innovation toward reducing energy use, often with little in the way of research or best practices to guide them. The research described pre- viously will likely help transit agencies make the transition from pilot projects to standard operating procedures, so that the transit service of tomorrow will not only be an energy- efficient alternative to driving, but a substantial improvement on the transit of today.