The Board of Trustees of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) has approved the purchase of 60 new CNG-powered buses, along with related training, special tools and spare parts from Gillig LLC, for $28,951,898. All of these coaches will run on compressed natural gas (CNG).
These vehicles should be delivered in March 2015.
An additional 180 buses CNG-powered buses will be ordered in the future, for delivery in 2016-2018, for a total of 240 buses. All of these vehicles will replace current buses that are at least 12 years old and/or have 500,000 miles on them.
Along with the vehicles, RTA will need to build CNG dispensing facilities at two bus garages. The first will be installed at Hayden Garage in East Cleveland.
RTA made the decision to suggest CNG buses instead of diesel for the environmental benefits of CNG over diesel, as well as the extreme cost savings. Each vehicle will save an estimated $200,000 in fuel costs using CNG instead of diesel in its lifetime, using today's diesel and CNG costs.
