Milwaukee County Transit System’s (MCTS) East-West Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line saw its first charging station installed at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in Wauwatosa.
The planned nine-mile, regional, modern transit line is scheduled to begin service in June 2023, connecting to major employment, education and recreation destinations through downtown Milwaukee, Milwaukee’s Near West Side, Marquette University, Wauwatosa and the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center.
The new BRT route will come with a battery-electric bus (BEB) charging station at Watertown Plank at the end of the route.
To help ensure these BEB batteries are always fully functioning, MCTS has implemented a charge management plan, which calls for topping off each bus battery every third lap of the 18-mile roundtrip route, for nine minutes. Then, each night, the fleet of battery-electric buses will be charged for approximately two hours overnight.
BRT charging station facts:
- The charging pole at Watertown Plank Road stands 15 feet tall and weighs 3,000 pounds.
- ABB manufactured the 450-Kilowatt charger, part of the E-mobility HVC-PD charging system.
- The pantograph lowers and connects to the rooftop of the bus and charges the electric bus in as little as three to six minutes.
- The battery-electric buses can operate up to 247 miles on a single charge.
- Nova Bus will produce the all-electric LFSe+ buses for MCTS. The first of the 11 buses will arrive in November. Four additional buses arrive in 2023.
