Route Determination

3.2.1 Kansas City Area Transit Authority (KCATA) Operations The Kansas City PHEV’s ultimate purpose was to meet the Phase I proof-of-concept goals centered on transit operation. Since the Kansas City PHEV was configured as a paratransit vehicle, the proof-of-concept study was designed within the confines of the Kansas City Area Transit Authority’s (KCATA) operations. Because of this, it was important to describe the KCATA’s original intent for the Sprinter PHEV in order to articulate the rationale used when designing and Kansas City PHEV on-road emissions study.

Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) is a transit bus operator in Kansas City, MO serving the Kansas City Metro and surrounding areas. At the time of sampling, KCATA operated 69 regular routes with an additional 7 Metroflex routes, reporting just over 51,000 in annual ridership (based on May 2007 data). KCATA was recruited as a project member in order to test the proof-of-concept PHEV Sprinter in normal paratransit operation.

Originally, the PHEV Sprinter was placed into KCATA’s Metroflex service. In order to meet the needs of Metroflex operation, Braun provided the vehicle conversion necessary to accommodate the demands required of public transit buses. The conversion included adding extra seating to accommodate additional passengers, installing a

hydraulic wheelchair lift, an electronic side door, KCATA radio system, and a basic, non-electronic fare box. The total conversion resulted in a total vehicle curb weight of

7620lbs with a remaining payload of 930lbs.

KCATA’s Metroflex program is, by name, a “flex-service” that operates as an on-demand bus service. Due to the flexible nature of the program, KCATA’s paratransit service does not adhere to a fixed-route or fixed-schedule operation, and, instead, acts more like a taxicab service that is constrained to set geographic boundaries. Large idle times are an inherent characteristic of the on-demand scheduling; therefore the PHEV’s configuration did not prove suitable for the Metroflex service. Extensive time sitting at idle with auxiliary systems running depleted the PHEV’s battery capacity to deleterious levels. Without the ability to regenerate electric capacity through regular driving, the Metroflex application did not permit the PHEV to operate according to its intended design.

In addition to the Metroflex’s incompatibility with the plug-in hybrid concept, the service did not provide a suitable platform for conducting emissions testing. In order to most efficiently develop a dataset capable of characterizing the PHEV Sprinter’s

emissions, it was necessary to find realistic routes with varying drive and road conditions that could be effectively and easily reproduced. Since the Metroflex’s daily (and hourly) drive requirements varied, the Metroflex routes were not selected for emissions testing simulations. Additional transit service options were discussed with KCATA officials during a July 2007 meeting, and it was decided that routes serviced by smaller transit buses with lower ridership numbers were the only suitable alternatives for PHEV implementation.

3.2.2 Route Selection Criteria

Following the decision made during the July 2007 KCATA meeting, several KCATA routes were selected to be the basis of all emission testing efforts. In order to qualify as a suitable testing platform, the selected transit routes had to meet the following criteria:

 Actual KCATA serviced routes: In order to best simulate transit operation, it was essential that all testing be conducted while driving actual transit routes. This also afforded the ability to shadow transit buses during actual operation;

 Provide varying roadway scenarios: Since one of the primary goals of the emissions demonstration study was to provide a comprehensive dataset capable of describing the PHEV’s operation under a variety of different road conditions, it was important to select routes that possessed various driving scenarios, such as downtown driving near the urban core, suburban driving conditions, and highway operation;

 Short Length: In order to conduct the emissions evaluation study as systematically as possible, it was necessary to select routes that could be reproduced in a reasonable amount of time. Routes covering multiple geographic areas within the Kansas City Metro and outlying areas were

considered too long to allow sufficient reproducibility within the study’s timeframe;

 Near the KCATA Bus Yard: Semtech installation and PHEV charging both occurred at the KCATA site. In order to evaluate the PHEV under a variety of different battery charge states, selected routes needed to be close enough to the KCATA home base so that the sampling site could be reached while the PHEV’s state of charge was near its starting high. It was also important to remain within 10-15miles of KCATA during sampling efforts in order to address any mid-sampling service issues that arose with the PHEV Sprinter or the Semtech system;

 Safety: All routes were sampled in two different manners: while shadowing a KCATA bus and while driving solo (or not following a transit bus). Routes where stops were scheduled in high traffic or

excessively congested areas were eliminated. Consideration was given to the PHEV’s, pedestrians’, and other drivers’ safety when selecting

sampling routes.

3.2.3 Overview of Selected Sample Routes

Four different KCATA routes were selected for emissions testing. Two of the selected routes had alternate route and stop configurations resulting in six unique routes with some inter-route roadway repetition between the different routes. In order to

evaluate the PHEV’s highway operation, a 7^th route outside of the KCATA serviced routes was selected to investigate the PHEV Sprinter’s behavior at higher speeds. On-road operating differences were observed between transit service and normal, civilian driving during preliminary testing. Therefore, where feasible, the routes were driven in two different manners: first by shadowing or following a KCATA transit bus while in regular service, and secondly, the routes were driven solo (without following a transit bus, stopping at official bus stops, or adhering to a set bus schedule) resulting in a more conservative drive cycle representative of a normal driving scenario such as might be encountered by a standard delivery vehicle. Cadle, et al. (2006) found no statistically significant difference in the velocity and acceleration profiles between target and chase vehicles. Therefore, the act of shadowing a transit bus was accepted as a suitable simulation of actual transit operation. This dual-mode sampling method was selected in order to provide a more comprehensive view of the PHEV Sprinter’s on-road operation and emissions. For the remainder of the project, the two drive scenarios will be referred to as “follow” (shadowing or following a KCATA bus) and “solo” (driving the route alone, without simulating transit operation). The selected routes are summarized in table 3.4, and all routes are mapped in Figure 3.6.

Figure 3.6: Comprehensive map with all sampled routes.

Urban