A hybrid electric bus may have either a parallel powertrain (e.g. Volvo B5L) or a series powertrain (e.g. some versions of the Alexander Dennis Enviro400).
The United States Department of Energy (USDOE) has announced the selection of Navistar Corporation for a cost-shared award of up to $10 million to develop, test, and deploy plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) school buses. The project aims to deploy 60 vehicles for a three-year period in school bus fleets across the nation. The vehicles will be capable of running in either electric-only or hybrid modes and will be recharged from a standard electrical outlet. Because electricity will be their primary fuel, they will consume less petroleum than standard vehicles. To develop the PHEV school bus, Navistar will examine a range of hybrid architectures and evaluate advanced energy storage devices, with the goal of developing a vehicle with a 40-mile (64 km) electric range. Travel beyond the 40-mile (64 km) range will be facilitated by a clean Diesel engine capable of running on renewable fuels. The DOE funding will cover up to half of the project's cost and will be provided over three years, subject to annual appropriations.
Tribrid buses have been developed by the University of Glamorgan, Wales. They are powered by hydrogen fuel or solar cells, batteries and ultracapacitors.
Air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions
A report prepared by Purdue University suggests introducing more hybrid Diesel-electric buses and a fuel containing 20% biodiesel (BD20) would further reduce greenhouse emissions and petroleum consumption.
Current manufacturers of Diesel-electric hybrid buses include Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL), Azure Dynamics Corporation, Ebus, Eletra (Brazil), New Flyer Industries, Tata, (India), Gillig, Motor Coach Industries, Orion Bus Industries, North American Bus Industries, Daimler AG's Mitsubishi Fuso, MAN, Designline, BAE Systems, Volvo Buses, Wrightbus, Castrosua, Tata Hispano and many more.
In 2006, Nova Bus, which had previously marketed the RTS hybrid before that model was discontinued, added a Diesel-electric hybrid option for its LFS series. as well
In the United Kingdom, Wrightbus has introduced a development of the London "Double-Decker", a new interpretation of the traditional red buses that are a feature of the extreme traffic density in London. The Wright Pulsar Gemini HEV bus uses a small Diesel engine with electric storage through a lithium ion battery pack. The use of a 1.9-litre Diesel instead of the typical 7.0-litre engine in a traditional bus demonstrates the possible advantages of serial hybrids in extremely traffic-dense environments. Based on a London test cycle, a reduction in CO2 emissions of 31% and fuel savings in the range of 40% have been demonstrated, compared with a modern "Euro-4" compliant bus.
Also in 2005 General Electric introduced its hybrid electric gear shifters on the market. Toyota claims to have started with the Coaster Hybrid Bus in 1997 on the Japanese market. In May 2003 General Motors started to tour with hybrid electric buses developed together with Allison. Several hundreds of those buses have entered into daily operation in the U.S. The Blue Ribbon City Hybrid bus was presented by Hino, a Toyota affiliate, in January 2005. Mitsubishi Fuso have developed a Diesel engine hybrid bus using lithium batteries in 2002, and this model has since seen limited service in several Japanese cities.
Since 1999, Hybrid electric buses with gas turbine generators have been developed by several manufacturers in the US and New Zealand, with the most successful design being the buses made by Designline of New Zealand. The first model went into commercial service in Christchurch (NZ) since 1999, and later models were sold for daily service in Tokyo, Auckland (NZ), Hong Kong, and Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).
New Flyer, Gillig, North American Bus Industries, and Nova Bus produce hybrid electric buses using either BAE System's HybriDrive, or Allison Transmission GM's electric drive system.
The Whispering Wheel bus is another HEV.
List of former hybrid bus manufacturers: ISE Corporations Thundervolt (filed for bankruptcy in 2010) Azure Dynamics (filed for bankruptcy in 2012)
Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies (HEVT) makes conversions of new and used vehicles (aftermarket and retrofit conversions), from combustion buses and conventional hybrid electric buses into plug-in buses.
Transit authorities that use hybrid electric buses:
Federal funding generally comes from the federal Diesel Emissions Reduction Act.
ABQ RIDE (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority (AAATA) (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
Autoridad Metropolitana de Autobuses (San Juan, Puerto Rico)
Baltimore, Maryland
Bee-Line Bus System (Westchester County, New York)
Berks Area Reading Transportation Authority (Berks County, Pennsylvania)
Bloomington Transit (Bloomington, Indiana)
Broome County Transit (Broome County, New York)
Broward County Transit (Broward County, Florida)
Capital Area Transportation Authority (Lansing, Michigan)
Capital District Transportation Authority (Albany, New York)
Central New York Regional Transportation Authority (Syracuse, New York)
Charlotte Area Transit System (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Chatham Area Transit (Savannah, Georgia)
Chicago Transit Authority
Citibus (Lubbock, Texas).
Central Ohio Transit Authority (Columbus, Ohio)
Clarksville Transit System (CTS) (Clarksville, Tennessee)
Community Transit (Snohomish County, Washington)
C-Tran (Vancouver, Washington)
Citilink (Fort Wayne, Indiana)
CVTD Cache Valley Transit District (Logan, Utah)
DART First State (Delaware)
Durham Area Transit Authority (Durham, North Carolina)
Eureka Transit Service (Eureka, California)
GoRaleigh (formerly Capital Area Transit) (Raleigh, North Carolina)
Greater Lafayette Public Transportation Corporation (Lafayette, IN)
Greater Lynchburg Transit Company (Lynchburg, VA)
Greenville Area Transit (Greenville, North Carolina)
Hillsborough Area Regional Transit (Hillsborough County, Florida)
Howard Transit, (Howard County, Maryland)
Jacksonville Transportation Authority
Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority
Kansas City Area Transportation Authority
King County Metro Transit Authority (Seattle, Washington)
Lane Transit District (Lane County, Oregon)
Long Beach Transit (Long Beach, California)
LACMTA (Los Angeles, California)
LANTA (Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania)
Madison Metro Transit (Wisconsin)
Manatee County Area Transit (Manatee County, Florida)
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (Boston, MA)
MATA (Memphis, Tennessee)
MATBUS - Metro Area Transit (Fargo, ND - Moorhead, MN)
Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas (Houston, Texas)
Minneapolis-Saint Paul Metro Transit
MTA Maryland (Baltimore, Maryland)
Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority
New York City Transit Authority
Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (Buffalo, New York)
North County Transit District (North San Diego County, California)
Orange County Transportation Authority (Orange County, California)
Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (Springfield, Massachusetts)
Port Authority of Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada/Citizens Area Transit (Las Vegas, Nevada)
Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (Providence, Rhode Island) 1 gas and 1 diesel for testing use only, diesel wqs converted gas was hybird from factory
Roaring Fork Transportation Authority (Aspen, Colorado)
San Diego Metropolitan Transit System/San Diego Transit (San Diego, California)
San Francisco MUNI (San Francisco, California)
San Joaquin Regional Transit District (Stockton, California)
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority - VTA (Santa Clara County, California)
Santa Rosa CityBus (Santa Rosa, California)
Sarasota County Area Transit (Sarasota County, Florida)
Sound Transit (Puget Sound region, Washington)
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Spokane Transit Authority (Spokane, Washington)
TCAT (Ithaca, NY)
TheBus (Honolulu, Hawaii)
The Rapid The Interurban Transit Partnership Grand Rapids, Michigan *Has 5 vehicles used in fixed route service.
TriMet (Portland, Oregon): two vehicles.
University of Michigan Parking and Transportation Services (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
Utah Transit Authority (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority
Transit Windsor (Windsor, Ontario)
Edmonton Transit System (Edmonton, Alberta)
Hamilton Street Railway (Hamilton, Ontario)
OC Transpo (Ottawa, Ontario)
RTC (Quebec City, Quebec) [Currently only one Novabus LFS HEV in service]
Saskatoon Transit, Saskatchewan
STM (Montreal, Quebec) [Currently owns four Novabus LFS HEVs, testing for larger orders]
STO (Gatineau, Quebec)
St. Catharines Transit Commission (St. Catharines, Ontario)
Toronto Transit Commission buses [693 out of 2031 buses are hybrid.]
Coast Mountain Bus Company (Vancouver, British Columbia)
BC Transit (Kelowna and Victoria).
GRT (Waterloo, Ontario). [Currently 6 out of 218 buses in service are hybrid.]
London Transit Commission (London, Ontario)
Strathcona County Transit (Strathcona County, Alberta) [As of 2014, 10 Nova Bus LFS HEV diesel-electric hybrid buses remain in service]
Halifax Transit, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Currently owns two hybrid-electric buses.
Lethbridge Transit, Lethbridge, Alberta. 11 out of 42 buses are hybrid.
Beijing Public Transport
Kunming Bus
Shenzhen Bus Group
Shenzhen Eastern Bus
Shenzhen Western Bus
Jinan Bus
City bus
First Bus
KMB
Delhi Multi-Module Transit
Mumbai BEST CNG-Hybrid
Vehicle, Fuel and Environment Research Institute (VFERI)
Marunouchi Shuttle
Green Frog Hybrid Buses
SBS Transit
Dresden
Hagen
Lübeck
Munich
Nuremberg
Budapest - The fleet consists of 28 Volvo 7900A Hybrid (Articulated)
Kecskemét -The fleet consists of 20 Mercedes-Benz Citaro G BlueTec®-Hybrid (Articulated)
Nettbuss, Hamar
Ruter, Oslo
Nettbuss, Trondheim
Nettbuss, Arendal
The Green Bus Fund is a fund which is supporting bus companies and local authorities in the UK to help them buy new electric buses.:
London Buses, London. This is the largest fleet in the UK, with around 12,00 vehicles in use.
National Express in Birmingham - 18 currently, 21 more planned
Stagecoach, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield, Newcastle
Oxford Bus Company, Oxfordshire - 52 currently.
FirstGroup, Bath, Somerset, Bristol, Manchester Metroshuttle, Leeds
Reading Buses
Lothian Buses
Cumfybus, Merseyside
Brighton & Hove
Stagecoach Bluebird, Aberdeen
Arriva West Yorkshire from April 2013
Barcelona (MAN Lion's City Hybrid)
Empresa Municipal de Transportes, Madrid
Figueres, within the Electrobus Project, IDAE
Jönköpings Länstrafik, Jönköping. MAN Lion's City Hybrid
Göteborgs Spårvägar, Gothenburg. Volvo 7700 Hybrid
Storstockholms Lokaltrafik, Stockholm. MAN Lion's City Hybrid
Ljubljanski potniški promet (5 Kutsenits Hydra City II/III Hybrid's), Ljubljana, Slovenia
Paris: RATP is using a hybrid electric bus outfitted with ultracapacitors; the model used is the MAN Lion's City Hybrid.
Milan, Italy
Team Trafikk, Trondheim, Norway, with 10 Volvo B5L
Vienna, Austria
PostAuto, Switzerland: one vehicle is being tested since April 2010; the test will continue for three years.
Warsaw, Poland, 4 Solaris hybrid (combustion-electric) buses
Luxemburg (Sales-Lentz, Emile Weber and AVL)
Belgium / Flanders (De Lijn)
Belgium / Wallonia (TEC) : 90 Volvo 7900H (plug-in hybrid) + 208 solaris (combustion-electric) ordered in 2016Q4
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Christchurch, New Zealand
Curitiba, Brazil
Mexico City, Mexico (Metrobús Line 4)
Bogotá, Colombia
