InTransition

John W. Bartlett, Passaic County Commissioner, NJTPA Chair

John P. Kelly, Ocean County Commissioner, NJTPA First Vice Chair

Charles Kenny, Middlesex County Commissioner, NJTPA Second Vice Chair

Jason Sarnoski, Warren County Commissioner, NJTPA Third Vice Chair

Betty Jane Kowalski, Union County Commissioner, NJTPA Secretary

t rust EE s

James J. Tedesco III, Bergen County Executive

Joseph DiVincenzo, Essex County Executive

Thomas A. DeGise, Hudson County Executive

Susan Soloway, Hunderton County Commissioner

Steven M. Fulop, Mayor, Jersey City

Thomas A. Arnone, Monmouth County Commissioner

Kathryn A. DeFillippo, Morris County Commissioner

Ras J. Baraka, Mayor, Newark

Sara Sooy, Somerset County Commissioner

Christopher Carney, Sussex County Commissioner

Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Transportation

Kevin Corbett, President & CEO, NJ TRANSIT

Kevin O’Toole, Chairman, Port Authority of NY & NJ

Noreen Giblin, Governor’s Representative

Jamie LeFrak, Citizen’s Representative

North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority

FROM THE CHAIRMAN’S DESK

Iam pleased to present the latest issue of InTransition magazine. As one of the largest Metropolitan Planning Organizations in the United States, the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) has long sought to foster discussions of transportation issues and explore best practices among planning organizations across the country.

This issue touches on timely and relevant topics for transportation planning. In New Jersey and neighboring New York, we’ve seen an uptick in microtransit, with Jersey City and New York City both turning to Via, an app-based on-demand transportation provider, to help people get around. Other cities are using similar technology or developing their own.

Another article focuses on the growth of electric vehicle (EV) use, along with a first-person account from an owner navigating the new technology. There has been a spike in EV sales across the country, and we only expect this to grow, especially as the federal government provides additional funding for charging infrastructure under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Speaking of alternative fuel vehicles, we also have an article exploring the use of hydrogen-powered trucks and the potential environmental benefits.

Finally, we take a look at the effect the COVID-19 pandemic is having on transit agencies as we settle into a new normal. While we know essential workers, like emergency personnel, healthcare professionals, and grocery store employees never had the luxury of working remotely, other businesses have—at least for now—decided to shutter their offices in favor of a fully-remote staff or settled on a hybrid approach. I think it’s safe to say we’re all still trying to figure out what the long-term future of commuting will look like.

I hope you enjoy our latest articles and welcome your feedback.

Visit us at NJTPA.org

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John W. Bartlett Chair, NJTPA

InTransition (ISSN 1097-3486) is issued twice yearly by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Copyright © 2022 NJIT. All rights reserved.

Editorial correspondence can be addressed to the NJTPA, InTransition magazine, One Newark Center, 17th Floor, Newark NJ 07102. Subscriptions are also available at intransitionmag.org or (973) 639-8424. InTransition welcomes queries regarding possible contributions. Contributor guidelines are available at intransitionmag.org.

This publication is financed by the Federal Transit Administration and the Federal Highway Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The NJTPA and NJIT are responsible for its contents.

Editorial Staff

Microtransit Changing The Landscape

App-based Rides Get Into the Public Transit Game

The New York Citybased transportation company Via contracts with agencies to provide microtransit services in more than 200 markets [Via]

By Josh Stephens

On any weekday in certain parts of west Los Angeles, an eager commuter can start anywhere from a multimillion-dollar mansion to a modest rental apartment, consult a GPS-enabled app, and request a ride to a number of useful destinations. Perhaps an office. Perhaps the campus of nearby UCLA. Or perhaps a light rail station, serving the region’s relatively new Expo Line. If all goes well, the ride will arrive within a few minutes, and the trip will be direct. ● For this service, the passenger—whether billionaire, student, blue-collar worker —will pay exactly $1. The return trip: same procedure, same price. ● At one-third the price of a coffee, this service is provided by neither Uber nor Lyft, the Silicon Valley-based behemoths that have made app-enabled ridesharing ubiq-

uitous, but, especially with “surge” pricing and all sorts of surcharges, far from cheap. Nonetheless, these services have been accused, with varying degrees of validity, of undermining public transit in many cities, siphoning off discretionary riders willing to pay for convenience.

Similar to dozens of other services emerging across the country, Metro Micro is the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s way of marrying the convenience of app-based rides with the mission-driven motivation of public transit. Late though they may be to ride-hailing, public transit agencies have rolled out “microtransit” services in recent years, representing arguably this generation’s greatest innovation in public transit. Most microtransit services rely on medium-sized vans that, rather than adhere to fixed routes the way buses do, serve cordoned regions within cities or transit agencies’ jurisdic-

Microtransit can serve as an agency’s traditional modes through first- and lastmile connections, enabling riders to make their way to and from bus and rail liens that may be far away. [Metro Micro]

tions. They attempt to marry the efficiency of vanpooling with the convenience of ride-hailing and the relatively low user costs of largescale public transit. “In technical terms, microtransit is demand-responsive transit,” said Ali Kothwala, a researcher at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis.

“Typically, when you think about transit, you think about frequency, headways. The routes are pretty much scheduled, you show up at a bus stop or transit station, it will take you to a certain destination,” Kothwala said. “Microtransit changes the landscape a bit. It merges demand-responsiveness (with) …

decid(ing) where you want to go, as long as it’s within a service area.”

In addition to Metro Micro, which started in late 2020, microtransit services include MARTA’s Reach in the Atlanta region, Albany’s FLEX service in New York, and Via Jersey City in New Jersey, among many others. Some have even arisen in low-density rural areas and on at least one Native American reservation, the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, that otherwise have no public transportation options.

The New York City-based transportation company Via, which contracts with many agencies to provide microtransit services (including rolling stock and/or app and deployment technologies), estimates that it now serves more than 200 markets globally, with more on the way.

“We’re seeing a lot of ridership growth, almost across the board,” said Via Co-Chief Operating Officer Alex Lavoie. “I don’t think we’ve

ever felt so optimistic about how important microtransit can be as a component of the public transit strategy of cities in the U.S. and across the world.”

Microtransit services are typically designed to achieve one of three goals, or a combination thereof. They can serve neighborhoods and populations that are underserved by conventional transit, including fixedroute bus lines and trains. They can reach areas where rider demand and/ or street configurations, such as hills or curves, make fixed-route buses inefficient or entirely infeasible.

“Either you want this to serve as feeders or a substitute to shorter trips made by cars,” Kothwala said. “You could have multiple goals and objectives … and your metrics would vary based on that.”

Microtransit can also serve an agency’s traditional modes through first- and last-mile connections, enabling riders to make their way to and from bus and rail lines that might otherwise be prohibitively far away—or that might require dangerous or unpleasant walks in inclement weather or through areas that are perceived as dangerous. Likewise, operating hours can matter as much as geography, with microtransit serving some passengers after dark when safety concerns are heightened.

“People can use it to supplement how they’re traveling,” said Anthony Thomas, program manager for MARTA Reach. “It’s difficult in a place like Atlanta. The terrain might be difficult. It’s sometimes really hot, sometimes really rainy. Having a service that allows them to simplify that first part of it has been hugely important.”

And the microtransit systems can encourage transit ridership.

“The majority of origins and

destinations tie back into our fixed route network,” said Rani NarulaWoods, who oversees L.A.’s Metro Micro. “As we continue to expand the public footprint of mass transit, I think we’ll continue to see that bump in connectivity between Metro Micro and other services.”

Systems are typically designed to operate within relatively small geographic regions, both to achieve operational efficiency, with vans operating like circulators, and to target the three goals. The eight zones served by Metro Micro are up to about 30 square miles and are spread throughout the city of Los Angeles and several neighboring jurisdictions—covering only a fraction of Metro’s service area but, according to Metro officials, serving key groups of riders.

Likewise, the pilot plan for MARTA Reach includes four zones,

including urban and suburban areas. The zones were designed to serve different demographic groups in part to be able to compare data. “We started from not really knowing a lot about how our riders might want to interact with on-demand transit,” Thomas said. “We didn’t know if it would be people who are walking long distances to use our services now or people that don’t currently use MARTA.”

“We chose the zones to see how the service operated in different areas and communities,” said Thomas.

By contrast, Jersey City itself is smaller than any of these big-city zones, so Via’s service areas cover the entire city. Though Jersey City is served by several transit agencies, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s PATH and NJ TRANSIT buses and light rail, Via Jersey City is the only service run by the city and designed expressly for its residents and other stakeholders. It’s meant to address areas of the city underserved by transit, with rides

Eight zones served by Metro Micro are up to about 30 square miles, spread throughout Los Angeles. [Metro Micro] continued on page 13

Ready or Not, ‘EV Decade’ Is Here

Data Points to Start of Transformation in Transportation in U.S.

By Karl Vilacoba

The end of the road for the internal combustion engine car arrives in 2024. ● According to the BloombergNEF Long-Term Electric Vehicle Outlook 2022 (EVO), published in July, the global fleet of gas-guzzling passenger vehicles will grow for the next two years before entering a permanent state of decline. The slide is virtually inevitable. Where government subsidies were once critical to sustaining the industry, the report concludes that the U.S. is nearing the point where consumer demand will take hold of the wheel. ● A growing body of data has begun to demonstrate the change underway. In the years preceding 2020, the market share of electric vehicles (EV) sales hovered in the 2 percent range. In 2021, it more than doubled to 4.7 percent, from 325,000 vehicles sold in 2020

Only two electric vehicles sold 100,000 units or more in 2021: The Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y

to 657,000, according to Corey Cantor, co-author of the EVO.

And while 14 of 15 major automakers saw year-over-year losses in a Cox Automotive Industry Insights comparison of first half sales in 2021 vs first half sales in 2022, one saw an increase: Tesla. On average, the 14 absorbed a 17 percent sales loss; Tesla sales rose 89 percent.

“It’s still a relatively small part of the market at 5 percent, but it’s where all the growth is,” Cox Director of Corporate Communications Mark Schirmer said. “We expected this to be the EV decade.”

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS

So far, the decade belongs to Tesla. According to Cantor, only two EVs sold 100,000 units or more last year: The Tesla Model 3 and the Tesla Model Y. The next best seller was the Ford Mustang Mach-E SUV, at about 30,000 units.

If half of all vehicles sold by 2030 were electric, which is the current federal target, the U.S. would need about 20 times more publicly available charging stations than currently exist. [Tesla]

Part of the gap can be attributed to Tesla’s deft navigation of the supply chain issues that have badly slowed the manufacturing capacity of automakers across the board. It is perhaps also a matter of changing tastes.

Where the notion of driving an EV once conjured the stereotype of a liberal environmentalist in a Toyota Prius, Tesla is regarded as something entirely different: a status symbol. Its drivers are less green-minded activists and more the tech lovers who’ll wait on lines for the newest iPhone.

“The Tesla phenomenon was built more on early tech adopters and not hardcore green adopters,” Schirmer observed, pointing to its

overall performance and famed tech features that set it apart from other cars. “Tesla is the #1 luxury vehicle nameplate now in the U.S. It outsells Mercedes and BMW and Lexus. It’s not just the #1 EV, it’s the #1 luxury vehicle maker in the U.S., so a real success story.”

DUMPING THE PUMP

It hasn’t hurt the EV’s cause that Americans are suffering through the worst gas prices in history. As average prices climbed above $4 and finally above $5 per gallon in the spring, Schirmer said two Cox properties, AutoTrader.com and the online Kelley Blue Book, saw searches for EVs surge.

A June poll by AAA indicated that gas prices have nudged drivers who may have had reservations about EVs to get off the fence. A quarter of those surveyed said they would be likely to buy an EV for their next auto purchase, with Mil-

ADVANCES IN BATTERY TECHNOLOGY , automakers continued scaling up in production, and the gradual clearing of supply chain problems are expected to cool prices down.

lennials leading all groups at 30 percent. The top reason cited was to save on fuel costs (77 percent).

“The increase in gas prices over the last six months has pushed consumers to consider going electric, especially for younger generations,” said AAA Director of Automotive Engineering and Industry Relations Greg Brannon. “They are looking for ways to save, and automakers continue to incorporate cool styling and the latest cutting-edge technology into electric vehicles, which appeal to this group.”

But therein lies the paradox. At a moment when exorbitant fuel costs and supply chain shortages have convinced a whole new crop of buyers to kick the tires on an EV purchase, they’ve found there are few to none to be had, thanks to those same problems. “These people are interested in electric vehicles but they’re not necessarily buying them yet and the reason is, they’re just not affordable enough on the upfront base,” BloombergNEF’s Cantor said. “But it has planted a seed in there.”

PRICES REMAIN A BARRIER

In June, prices for new autos of all stripes hit an all-time high, with severe inventory shortages inflating prices, according to Kelley Blue Book estimates. The story was no different for EVs, which rose to an average sale price of over $66,000. The availability of various models has differed from region to region, but long waits are the norm.

The competition for the limited supply of inventory even gave rise to an automotive version of the ticket

scalping industry. A June story in the Los Angeles Times profiled a new breed of “EV flippers” who advance order autos like the Tesla Model Y and Rivian R1T electric adventure vehicle, offer them at a steep markup on sites like Facebook Market, and find willing buyers with little problem.

It won’t always be this way, experts promise. Every major automaker has its own variety of EV models in their pipelines, ready to launch in the coming years. Many of them will be affordable alternatives to Tesla and the other luxury EVs.

Today, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia Niro and Kia EV6 sports utility

The market share of electric vehicles sales more than doubled to 4.7 percent in 2021, with some 657,000 sold in the United States.

vehicles are drawing strong reviews and slowly growing in volume. Their starting prices are in the neighborhood of $40,000, which is still a tough sell for consumers looking for an affordable car. But that cost can be brought down to the low $30,000s with a combination of rebates and incentives offered by some states and the federal government through President Biden’s recent Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) legislation. Likewise, advances in battery technology, automakers continued scaling up in production, and the gradual clearing of supply chain problems are expected to cool prices down.

By 2030, BloombergNEF projects 44 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. Will be EVs, with adoption uneven from region to region (California is already at 17 percent now).

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Energy

What I Learned In My First Year As An EV Owner

By Melissa Hayes

Are you someone who needs to go to a gas station as soon as your vehicle hits a quarter of a tank? Or do you wait for the low fuel light to come on?

If you fall within the latter group, you could own an electric vehicle (EV). In the year since I bought my first EV, the question I’m asked about the most is how far I can go without charging and whether I’ve ever feared running out of “gas.” Random strangers have approached me in parking lots to pose this question and others.

It’s an issue that came up when I attended a recent conference in Atlantic City. I was at a session on EV adoption, and someone pointed out the lack of chargers in the area. The question I just asked you was posed by one of the panelists. When she asked, a few people raised their hands in response to the quarter-of-atank habit but many more admitted to waiting for the gas light to come on.

“How many of you like to play chicken and see exactly how long you drive on E,” the presenter asked drawing many raised hands. “Okay, you all can be EV drivers—TODAY!”

When it comes to electric vehicles, how quickly your battery charges depends on the kilowatt (kW) output of the charger, as well as your vehicle’s voltage capacity.

While the audience laughed, it was a good analogy for why range anxiety shouldn’t be so scary. If that low gas warning light doesn’t bother you, neither should the warning that you only have 20 percent of your charge left. The only difference is charging an EV takes a bit longer than it does to top off your gas tank.

I was one of the handful of people in the room who owns an electric vehicle. Since I bought my car in July 2021, I’ve been stopped in parking lots more times than I can count by people asking me questions about my car. The spaceship sound it makes traveling at low speeds has turned many heads. I’m most often asked about how far I can travel on a charge, whether there are enough places to plug in and how expensive it is. To answer them in order:

I often go days without charging (this includes commuting 45 miles round trip and running errands). Longer trips require

some planning to plot out where the fastest chargers are. I’ve always been able to find a charger when I needed one. I spend significantly less money than I ever did on gas (even doing most of my charging at home).

A lot of people tell me they want to go electric but feel safer transitioning to a hybrid first. That was my plan too until a chip shortage left me unable to find a small hybrid SUV. I wasn’t willing to buy a car that I never had a chance to test drive and they were all selling before they arrived at dealers within 100 miles of me.

I hadn’t seriously considered an EV because I thought they were too expensive. And even though I changed jobs years ago and no longer did as much driving as I used to, in my head I still piled on the miles. (My EV replaced a 2007 Honda Civic with more than 265,000 miles.) The hunt for a new car to replace my failing 14-year-old one was stressing me out.

Then my husband saw an ad for the Volkswagen ID.4. It was similar in size to the hybrid SUVs I was considering, and it was a lot more affordable than I expected. I did some research and discovered the average range was 250 miles, which would more than cover my round-trip commute each day. I knew of at least a few chargers at shopping centers nearby and figured if we wanted to take a longer trip but charging was too complicated, we could just use our other vehicle (even if it does guzzle gas).

Several local dealers had models available for me to test drive and after I did, I was sold on going fully electric. Fortunately, I was able to take advantage of a $5,000 EV incentive New Jersey was offering at the time. Unlike the federal incentive, which is a rebate you file for on your next tax return, the New Jersey incentive lowered the price of the car when I bought it. The state incentive, combined with the $7,500 federal tax credit made the car more affordable. Here are a few takeaways from my first year as an EV owner.

CHARGING

There are a lot of different chargers and charging companies, so get used to having a lot of apps on your phone. Some manufacturers, like Tesla and Volkswagen, offer three free years of charging at their chargers when you purchase your vehicle. Unfortunately for me, there aren’t a lot of Electrify America chargers (the one Volkswagen offers free use of) in my area, but the numbers are growing.

There are three levels of charging:

LEVEL 1: Plugging into a standard home outlet. You can only add about 3 to 5 miles an hour when charging through standard outlets.

LEVEL 2: These are the most common for everyday use. You can install a higher capacity outlet in your house to install a Level 2 charger, like I did. You’ll also see these at shopping centers and in downtowns. (Some major shopping centers offer free charging to incentivize people to shop.) These chargers vary greatly, offering anywhere from 12 to 80 miles an hour.

LEVEL 3: These are called direct current fast chargers or DCFC. When people tell you they can charge from zero to 80 percent in about 30 minutes, this is what they’re using. These can also vary greatly, providing anywhere from 3 to 20 miles per MINUTE.

How quickly your battery charges depends on the kilowatt (kW) output of the charger, as well as your vehicle’s voltage capacity.

I have a relative who has owned an EV for years and he had told me I would become very familiar with kW charge rates.

Clearly, I didn’t familiarize myself enough, because I learned the hard way, on my way back from that conference in Atlantic City, that not all fast chargers are 150 kW like the Electrify America ones I had used closer to home. At the rest stop on the Garden State Parkway, the charger was only 50 kW, which meant it would take me more than an hour to recharge, rather than under 30 minutes. So, if I leave you with nothing else, always remember to

“CLEARLY, I DIDN’T FAMILIARIZE MYSELF enough, because I learned the hard way, on my way back from that conference in Atlantic City, that not all fast chargers are 150 kW like the Electrify America ones I had used closer to home.”

look at the kW rate on a charger before planning to use it (the apps and your car will know what the rates are for the chargers nearby).

BATTERY CAPACITY

You might have noticed that I mention charging up to 80 percent and not 100 percent. While you can fully charge, and I do when I’m going on longer trips, EV manufacturers recommend only charging to 80 percent when you don’t need the full range because it will extend the life of the rechargeable battery.

If you’re using a fast charger, the charging rate drops off dramatically once you hit 80 percent capacity to protect the battery from overheating. Charging rates are also affected by weather. It can take three times as long to charge at a fast charger in freezing temperatures, according to researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory. The battery technology and car reduce the rate to protect the battery.

RANDOM QUIRKS

One of the earliest things we learned is that my car doesn’t have AM radio. This may not be a big deal to you, but if you like sports or news radio, you might notice this, as we did. And it isn’t just my make and model. I was curious, so I investigated and learned that the electromagnetic noise from the car’s electric motor causes interference, resulting in static. (For any sports fanatics out there, the cars do have satellite radio receivers, if you’re willing to pay for a subscription.)

One other thing I learned recently is that some EVs have different sized front and rear tires. My rear-wheel drive ID.4 happens to be among them. I didn’t realize this until I got a flat tire and inquired with the dealer about whether I could buy a spare to keep in the trunk (my car didn’t come with one). It turns out some EVs have slightly larger rear tires where the battery is located. It’s something worth looking into if your car doesn’t come with a spare and you’re thinking about buying one. Like me, you might need two different sized tires. ●

more publicly available charging stations than it has now. Similarly, the EVO estimates the U.S. will need six times as many stations deployed four years from now than it has today. Even with the $7.5 billion allotted through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to spread 500,000 public chargers across the U.S., the country would be well short.

Cantor believes utilities and the private sector will need to step up and play a greater role in helping the U.S. meet the demand. He added that not all of the charging stations need to be of the fast-charging levels, but they do need to be reliable, so investment in their upkeep is another necessity.

“The good news is, there’s still time for folks in the private sector to get ahead of it,” Cantor said. “There’s always a bit of the chicken and the egg element to charging infrastructure.” There is no longer any question that the egg is hatching, though. The EV, for so long an idea that Americans expected to manifest at some vague point in the future, has begun its ascendance as the industry standard.

At the end of the 2030s, American drivers looking at the cars surrounding them on the highway can expect to see more EVs than internal combustion engine vehicles.

INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGES AHEAD

Are American roads ready? An analysis by McKinsey & Company concluded that if half of all vehicles sold by 2030 were zero-emission EVs, which is the current federal target, America would need about 20 times

“A couple of years ago we’d be having conversations and folks would say, ‘Do people really want electric cars? Do they have enough range?’” Cantor said. “And now the question is more, are automakers going to ship enough to meet demand? And when will we get back to that equilibrium point of having to wait only a couple of weeks, or even walking off the lot with one, versus waiting three to six months for some of the cheaper models?” ●

Melissa Hayes is Senior Manager of Outreach at the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority.

Karl Vilacoba is the Communications Director for the Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute.

beginning and ending in a central zone that includes downtown and near transit centers at a flat rate of $2, and anywhere within an outer zone for another $0.50 per mile fee.

The City of Wilson, North Carolina, took things a step further than Jersey City: it scrapped its entire five-route bus system in favor of citywide microtransit in 2020. The city reports that, as of this June, it was serving 3,700 passengers per week, which is more than double the number served by Wilson’s old bus system.

Not every service charges as little as $1 (which may yet turn out to be a promotional rate for Los Angeles Metro), but most services charge rates in line with their respective fares for traditional bus and rail routes. Whatever passengers pay, farebox recovery is almost always negligible compared to the cost of running what is, essentially, Uber or Lyft but funded by tax dollars rather than venture capital money.

No agencies interviewed for this article disclosed their per-rider costs but most insisted that microtransit should not necessarily be judged according to those metrics. The costs and operations of microtransit are more akin to those of paratransit than of fixed-route buses. Kothwala estimates that some microtransit services cost more than twice per mile what paratransit does, but costs are falling as agencies refine their operations.

However, agencies are required to provide paratransit for passengers with physical limitations, whereas microtransit is, essentially, elective. “Paratransit is currently viewed as something that you’re mandated to

provide. You’re not mandated to provide microtransit,” Kothwala said.

Microtransit can compare favorably if a fixed-route service obviates the need for a new route, or, in the case of Wilson, enables a city to eliminate traditional public transit entirely.

“It’s all relative,” said Anne Brown, professor of Community and Regional Planning at the University of Oregon. “It’s much more expen-

TikTok followers how much he, as a Los Angeles resident without a car, appreciates Metro Micro. He called it the “best public transpiration app ever.” The video received more than 262,000 “hearts” and presumably boosted Metro Micro ridership.

Even when influencers don’t give transit agencies free advertising, marketing and promotion can be, agency officials say, crucial to the success of a microtransit program. Even if

sive than a really efficient bus or rail line that goes down a central corridor with a lot of density. On a perride basis, it’s much more expensive than a fixed-route … it’s probably less expensive than, say, operating a full bus in the deep suburbs with two passengers per hour.”

For some agencies, though, expense is almost beside the point. Many microtransit zones, especially in large cities, are designed to promote social equity, serving populations that are marginalized or heavily dependent on transit.

Agencies are paying close attention to data to determine whether to make microtransit permanent. MARTA has partnered with Georgia Tech to both implement its pilot projects and evaluate their efficacy. Sometimes, though, all the data in the world is not as useful as a single TikTok video. In April, comedian Adam Conover—known for a quippy video series called “Adam Ruins Everything” that demystifies various social ills—told his 1.4 million

would-be riders are familiar with buses and with app-based rideshare services, they do not necessarily have an intuitive understanding of microtransit.

“It’s something new,” Kothwala said. “People are used to showing up at a stop and expecting a bus or a train to show up. Spotting a Metro Micro—not so much.”

MARTA used a variety of outreach and advertising methods to promote Reach, which ended, as scheduled, in August. Thomas said the agency used everything from traditional posters and direct mailers to street teams, pop-up events at stations, and giveaways of branded Reach transit cards to attract a wide variety of riders.

“It’s really important that people understand that the service is for them,” Thomas said. “People might see that there’s a service for ‘someone else’ or it might be for people with disabilities or a specialized service. In your communication, you need to

“

IT’S SOMETHING NEW. People are used to showing up at a stop and expecting a bus or a train to show up. Spotting a Metro Micro—not so much.”

Ali Kothwala, Institute of Transportation Studies

By Mark Hrywna

Transit Agencies Struggle Amid Commuting Patterns Still in Flux

Discounts,

Free Fares Aim to Boost Ridership

DASH (Driving Alexandria Safely Home) went fare free in September 2021 after examining other options, including free or half-price fares for lowincome residents only.

[DASH]

If science fiction movies are your guide, by 2022 you’d have expected to be living in some dystopian landscape: Machines becoming sentient, Harrison Ford chasing androids, Kurt Russell escaping New York. Thanks to The Jetsons, you’d think your commute would include a flying car. Or at least a measly jetpack. ● Instead, commuting remains firmly stuck on the ground, often with only drones flying overhead taking cool photographs.

● Nevertheless, the when, where and how of transportation and commuting has changed in dramatic ways. Two years into a global pandemic, some people are working entirely from home or going into an old-fashioned office just two or three times a week. According to the U.S. Census between 2019 and 2021, the number of people primarily working

from home tripled from 5.7 percent to 17.9 percent. That’s 27.6 million people. In 2022, many of them have been gradually returning to offices but hybrid work is now favored by more than half of both employees and employers.

Employees may appreciate the newfound flexibility, but the trend has upended traditional commutes and with it, what transit agencies and transportation planners can expect in the coming years. Transit ridership hasn’t rebounded to the extent that car commuting has and that’s also likely to impact upcoming budgets, with shortfalls potentially impacting service.

For Philip Plotch, principal researcher at the Washington, D.C.based Eno Center for Transportation, the more important question is what exactly is post-pandemic? “When is the new normal kicking in?” Surveys of employers are consistently overestimating how many people are com-

[DASH]

ing back and how often. “Agencies are a little skeptical of the numbers because employers have been a little overly aggressive,” he said. “There’s so many question marks out there,” about the state of the pandemic, with variant spikes every few months, but also the state of the economy.

Transit agencies in general received significant federal funds to make up operating gaps during the early part of the pandemic but it’s unclear how that’s going to work in the next few years, said Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate, and lead of the Fair Housing, Land Use, and Transportation Practice Area at the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center. “It’s a major concern, actually.”

What’s become increasingly apparent with the job market and inflation is that it’s going to continue to be very hard for transit agencies to maintain their operations. “That’s going to be a major issue,” Freemark said. “The effects of inflation are going to make it very difficult to pay for basic services.”

DASH BUS

There’s a real concern that transit agencies may cut service, Plotch said. Agencies with the lowest fare recovery ratios require the most subsidies and the ones that traditionally have the highest ratios are most susceptible to ridership losses, he said, adding that frequency of service is key, especially in areas like New York City where transit usually competes very well with people taking cars. Ridership numbers are more resilient than other parts of the country because traffic is bad, and the cost of driving is high. But if agencies start

Alexandria Transit Company created a new network of routes and eliminated fares for DASH.

cutting service, whether late at night or every 30 minutes instead of every 10 minutes, that ends up reducing the number of people using the system.

“Transit is competing with all these other modes,” Plotch said. “Operators have to figure out what their strengths are and their market niche; what amenities and services they have to make them compete better.”

AGENCIES RESPOND

Transit agencies have rolled out discounts to try to boost ridership while some cities have experimented with new concepts and products like microtransit. After a two-year hiatus, ride-hailing company Uber is bringing back its ridesharing program, which Plotch thinks is a big deal. “I was afraid they were going to give it up.”

NJ TRANSIT in February 2021 launched FLEXPASS, a 20-trip ticket discounted 20 percent off the one-way fare, geared toward commuters on a hybrid work schedule. As of September 2022, 350,000 passes have sold.

Freemark is optimistic that some transit agencies are trying to be responsive to different types of travel needs. “There’s a lot of people who might have different desires than the destinations they used to; especially to other neighborhoods and not downtowns,” he said, and there are agencies that want to respond to that. At the same time, he fears there’s “a bit of status quo” at transit agencies. “They’re used to providing the services they provide. It’s hard to

Freemark, Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center

get them to change that approach.”

The Greater Richmond Transit Agency is among several agencies that went beyond just discounts by eliminating fares entirely. It also reoriented service to local bus routes to prioritize essential workers and social equity. “It speaks to a broader need to improve,” said Freemark, who was among the authors of On the Horizon: Planning for Post-Pandemic Travel, a study released late last year by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). It presents five case studies of transit

Ridership on Alexandria, Virginia’s DASH returned to pre-pandemic levels since implementing free fares and new routes.

[DASH]

agencies’ responses to the pandemic. “The experience to me does suggest that free fares can be an effective way to keep people on transit,” he said.

Elsewhere in Virginia, the Alexandria Transit Company’s DASH (Driving Alexandria Safely Home) went fare free in September 2021, after examining other options including providing free or half-price fares to low-income residents only. It also created a new network of routes. The results have been dramatic. In May 2021, monthly ridership was only about 45 percent of pre-COVID levels, but since implementing free fares and new routes, ridership is back to pre-pandemic levels.

Like other transit agencies, the largest growth in ridership on DASH has occurred during what

“

THERE’S A LOT OF PEOPLE who might have different desires than the destinations they used to; especially to other neighborhoods and not downtowns” and there are agencies that want to respond to that.

Yonah

used to be non-rush hours—middays, evenings and weekends—surpassing pre-COVID ridership during those times. As more commuters continue to return to the office, DASH expects ridership will continue to increase, according to Whitney Code, marketing and communications manager.

Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge to going fare free is how to make up for lost revenue. “For agencies with less support, it is important to highlight the benefits for free fares for the entire community with increased bus ridership. More people on buses means less traffic, less parking demand, less environmental degradation, a stronger local economy, and better overall quality of life.”

Prior to the pandemic, Alexandria’s DASH averaged about $4 million in annual fare revenue. To defray the lost revenue, the agency was budgeted $1.5 million by the city in 2022 and was awarded $7 million over the next three years by the state of Virginia. DASH expects to remain fare-free through FY2025.

Another challenge has been

Ulster County Area Transit (UCAT) eliminated $1.50 fares on its buses and adjusted routes, effective October 1.

ridership data collection. Since DASH went fare free, customers no longer tap a SmarTrip card to get on the bus, which means no more data on rider types, fare media, or transfers, which are useful to the agency for planning. Instead, bus operators manually enter the number of passengers boarding until automated passenger counters are on board later this year.

Legislators in Ulster County, New York, about 90 minutes north of New York City amid the Catskills, in August approved free fares on its county transit service effective October 1—after some opposition among members.

In preparing a plan for free fares or reduced fares, Deputy County Executive Christopher Kelly said the county had to “work through some of the different scenarios to ensure we don’t impact our ability to claim state/federal reimbursement” which

is based on farebox recovery. This included gaining approval from the Federal Transit Administration.

Ulster County will pay for each individual trip through its general fund, counting each bus rider to maintain an accounting so there’s no negative effect on state or federal aid, Kelly said, adding that the county plans to review the scheme in its annual budget cycle.

“At this point, we may pursue private funding or somehow tie in our bus advertising to pay for ridership, but I think we have a lot to learn before we go down that road,” Kelly said via email.

UCAT BUS

Ulster County Area Transit (UCAT) eliminated $1.50 fares on its buses and adjusted routes, effective October 1.

“In a sense, the revenue won’t be lost because we anticipate the state will continue to return $3 to us for every $1 we send them from fares that the county will now subsidize rather than riders paying,” said Legislator Phil Erner, a co-sponsor of the measure. Fare-box revenue has decreased every year—from about $400,000 in 2015 to $342,000 in 2019 and continued to drop amid the pandemic the past two years— on an operating budget of about $7 million. “Spread across the whole county, it’s really pocket change, which our poorest residents now won’t have to worry about.”

Free fares aren’t for all. Agencies in Spokane, Washington, and Denver, Colorado, found that fare-free travel encouraged homeless people to keep their belongings on transit, according to the APTA study. Philosophically, some transit boards believe riders should contribute to the cost of the ride.

There’s no one clear answer when it comes to free fares, according to Freemark. It’s difficult to envision a future where transit is free in large cities like New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., where fares make up a huge share of the overall costs for transit agencies, which would have to find billions of dollars to make up the gap.

RIDERSHIP

HASN’T RETURNED

Transit agencies in general still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic ridership levels. Ridership among smaller agencies (less than 500,000) has rebounded somewhat better than at larger ones but even their peak has only reached about two-thirds of what it was before the pandemic as recently as July, according to trends tracked by the APTA. Though ridership has slowly climbed, even eclipsing 70 percent as recently as September, it could retreat in the face of another COVID variant as it did in the past, according to APTA.

That may not necessarily be the case for commuting patterns by car. The APTA study suggests that driving quickly returned to normal. Figures from the agency that operates the world’s busiest bridge confirm that. The number of automobiles crossing the six bridges—including the George Washington Bridge—and tunnels operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plummeted to 3.4 million. That’s almost a third of the average 9.3 million cars per month during 2019. Volume returned to the 9-million mark in May 2021 and has continued.

Some traditional commuting patterns on transit re-emerged as early as this spring. According to Fred Nangle, deputy director of service planning projects at MTA Metro-North Railroad who spoke at Metropolitan

The American Public Transportation Association has been tracking weekly ridership since December 2019.

Area Planning Forum’s June meeting. The peak morning rush of 7:30 to 9 a.m. and Tuesday-Thursday peak of the week curves have reappeared, with hybrid workers clearly working at home on Fridays.

Metro-North reinstated peak fares on non-commutation tickets as normal commuting patterns have begun to reassert themselves but now—like NJ TRANSIT—also offers a discounted 20-trip ticket aimed specifically at hybrid workers. Weekday ridership has returned to more than 50 percent of pre-pandemic as the Omicron variant faded, and more recently to about 55 percent.

Ridership on NJ TRANSIT is about 55 percent of pre-COVID levels overall, but weekend service has seen a rise, from about 80 percent to 90 percent with some trains at 100 percent, President and CEO Kevin Corbett said during the board’s June meeting. Interstate ridership into New York is at 65 percent and intra-

continued on page 32

SOURCE: American Public Transportation Association

HYDROGEN BIG RIGS:

Fuel Cell Electric Trucks

Emerging As A Viable Climate Solution

With the threats of climate change becoming a stark reality—including 6,000 temperature records set around the U.S. in July 2022— the efforts to build a clean energy economy must look to any and all options for replacing fossil fuels. Wind and solar are increasingly competitive. They join the long-standing alternative energy sources of nuclear and hydropower (and to a lesser extent geothermal). ● But there remains the tantalizing prospect of widespread use of hydrogen —nature’s most abundant element, found everywhere around us, including paired two-atoms-to-one with oxygen in water. The problem is, substantial energy is required to create free hydrogen, including using electricity to crack the chemical bonds in water through electrolysis. ● That energy penalty

By Mark Solof

Prototype Volvo hydrogen fuel cell electric truck. [Volvo Trucks]

places great limits on hydrogen’s usefulness. Toyota, Hyundai and a few other manufacturers have built hydrogen-powered vehicles, employing fuel cells that strip electrons from hydrogen as it combines with oxygen.

But hydrogen vehicles—known as fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV)— just can’t compete in terms of overall efficiency with battery electric vehicles for passenger cars. Battery electric systems have all but won out in the consumer vehicle market, led by Tesla.

But other factors come into play that favor hydrogen to cleanly power the largest vehicles such as long-haul trucks. As a result, long-haul trucking remains a potential leading-edge application for hydrogen, one that could lay the ground for wider applications of hydrogen throughout a clean energy economy. The trucks would reduce a large share of greenhouse gases generated by the

transportation sector—one-third of the total—along with other harmful air pollutants that beset populations in heavily-traveled truck corridors.

HEAVY LOADS

Fuel cells offer the prospect of vehicles that generate their own electricity without long periods of charging and emit only water from their tailpipes. The devices have a storied history including use in generating power for the 1969 Apollo moon landing mission while providing drinking water for the crew.

The problem is that 70 percent of the potential energy of free hydrogen is lost before it ever makes it to vehicle wheels—mainly due to the energy needed for electrolysis, compression of the gas for storage and transport and fuel cell processing.

In contrast, relatively little energy— about 30 percent—is lost in transporting wind or solar energy over the power grid to charge batteries and discharging the batteries to power electric motors.

Tesla founder Elon Musk expresses open contempt for all things hydrogen, calling fuels cells “a load of rubbish” and “fool sells.”

Volkswagen has rejected further hydrogen development for its cars. Its company statement quotes scientist Dietmar Voggenreite: “No sustainable economy can afford to use twice as much renewable energy to drive fuel cell cars instead of battery-powered vehicles.”

Even so, powering big rigs with batteries is problematic. Batteries are heavy. According to CNET, a long-range Tesla Model S sedan weighs 4,560 pounds—510 pounds more than a comparable gas-driven BMW. Some electric cars need special rear tires to accommodate the extra

Daimler’s prototype fuel cell truck uses super-cooled hydrogen. [Daimler Truck]

weight. This weight penalty is not a big deal when shuttling kids around town or hauling small packages in a delivery van. But it is a very big deal when powering big rigs that can carry payloads of 16 to 20 tons, operating for long periods, often over challenging terrain and through variable weather conditions. Those trucks typically travel 75,000 miles per year or about 300 to 600 miles per day.

A Carnegie Mellon study found a 600-mile capable battery pack would weigh more than 18 tons, significantly more than the cargo that many trucks carry. When the batteries discharge, the trucks would end up hauling around heavy useless weight. In contrast, studies have found that hydrogen fuel cells have an energy-to-weight ratio 10 times greater than lithium-ion batteries.

POWER DEMAND

Another significant factor for battery-powered trucks is charging time. A Tesla or other battery electric passenger car is most cost-effectively charged overnight. A level-4 fast charger can get some electric vehicles to an 80 percent charge in around 30 minutes. That’s for a battery of 40 to 120 kilowatt hours (kwh) (a measure of battery capacity). A large truck battery would need four times that—400 to 750 kwh—requiring hours on a fast charger.

That adds up to a real time penalty for electric trucks. Many drivers are on the clock and can’t afford long stretches of downtime. Refueling with hydrogen would take about

15 minutes, about the same for diesel trucks.

The need for long charging could also cause big problems for the electricity grid. Lars Stenqvist, Executive Vice President of Volvo Group Trucks Technology, speaking on Robert Llewellyn’s Fully Charged YouTube channel, pointed out that accommodating 50 or more trucks charging simultaneously for hours or overnight at a truck stop could draw huge amounts of power and require extensive new infrastructure and grid upgrades. Multiplied by hundreds of truck stops across Europe, the nightly demand he said could approach a gigawatt—“the size of a nuclear plant.”

Daimler’s truck fuel cell stack—about the size of a diesel engine. [Daimler Truck]

While hydrogen distribution systems for trucks are mostly still at the testing stage, fueling facilities at truck stops could be supplied with hydrogen by tanker truck as diesel is now.

BATTERY RESEARCH

Despite the challenges they face, battery electric systems are still very much in the running for powering the future long-haul truck market. Tesla and Volkswagen’s Scania division are betting on battery advances to make fully electric trucks competitive, drawing on intensive research underway in their own facilities, in start-up companies and academic labs. These efforts seek to create smaller, more energy-dense batteries. Much research in recent years has been focused on the holy grail of “solid state” batteries. The latest

A SIGNIFICANT FACTOR for battery-powered trucks is charging time. A level-4 fast charger can get some electric vehicles to an 80 percent charge in around 30 minutes. A large truck bettery would need four times that.

advances seek to use sulfur to achieve three times the energy density of current batteries, with more readily available materials.

The advances might remove much of the energy and weight penalties of batteries for heavy duty vehicles. Musk, with typical bombast, is promising Tesla’s first electric big rig deliveries in the next couple years—though the goal post keeps moving—produced with the company’s own battery factories.

Meanwhile a growing number of freight operators—including giants like PepsiCo and Amazon—are purchasing electric battery-powered light and medium duty trucks for local delivery, mostly charging them overnight at depots. As the base of the smaller electric trucks grows, many companies may be inclined to make the shift to larger electric vehicles for other needs, even if they have operational disadvantages in the short term—especially if fast-moving technology delivers cost advantages.

is the source for nearly all hydrogen(called gray hydrogen) currently in use. Incentive programs in the federal Inflation Reduction Act, by some accounts, will be a game changer for boosting green hydrogen production (see sidebar on Page 27).

In the transportation sector, the U.S. Department of Energy is supporting basic research and engineering through a Million Mile Fuel Cell Truck initiative, a consortium of five national labs along with 20 or more academic and industry partners.

Why “Million Mile?” According to Rod Borup, staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-director of the program the life of a truck can stretch a million miles or more, compared to perhaps 200,000 miles for passenger cars. Achieving that level of durability in fuel cells and on-board systems—including under often extreme temperatures and heavy power demands—is a key objective of the project.

The program is also looking

on expensive platinum in fuel cell catalysts—with a goal to reduce it to the level used in automobile catalytic converters.

TESTING

Drawing on the wide-ranging research underway, manufacturers are designing, building and testing prototype vehicles. They seek to position themselves to capture a share of the potentially transformed heavy duty truck market later in the decade. Furthest along are companies in China, Japan and Europe— reflecting the level of government commitments there to cleaning up the trucking sector.

In Europe, truck makers Volvo and Daimler have joined forces in a venture called Cellcentric to develop an efficient fuel cell system and are backing the organization H2Accelerate, which is promoting a plan for truck deployment continent-wide. It begins in a “learning” phase involving several hundred vehicles on the road through 2025, leading to “full industrialization” by 2030 with tens of thousands of hydrogen trucks competitive with diesel vehicles.

HYDROGEN RESEARCH

But hydrogen systems are very much in the technology race, with similarly intensive research, much of it backed by the federal government with public sector involvement. A caveat for all these efforts is that the systems depend on the eventual availability of reasonably priced green hydrogen—that is, hydrogen extracted from water using energy from wind, solar or other sustainable sources, rather than from natural gas, which

for the most efficient yield of energy from a variety of materials and catalysts in fuel cells—at the heart of which is the membrane electrode assembly which chemically separates protons and electrons in hydrogen to generate electricity. “There is a lot more that can be done to optimize fuel cells,” said Borup.

Another Department of Energysupported consortium, the Electrocatalysis (ElectoCat) Consortium, is focusing on reducing reliance

The Daimler prototype relies on super-cooled liquid hydrogen which is more energy-dense and requires smaller fuel tanks than compressed hydrogen gas (though the cooling requires more up-front energy). Like other prototypes, the truck has a high voltage battery to regulate electricity from the fuel cells to the motors and capture braking energy. Both Daimler and Volvo are touting a 1,000-km (621-mile) range for their vehicles which makes possible refueling at widely dispersed hydrogen-supplied truck stops along highways.

American companies are not sitting on the sideline. Rochester, New

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY is supporting basic research and engineering through a Million Mile Fuel Cell

York-based Hydron has provided its vehicles—built on retrofitted standard semi-truck chassis—to Europe, China and Australia and has made agreements to deploy up to 1,000 vehicles to service ports in the Netherlands. Seattle-based Kenworth has joined with Toyota in testing prototypes at the Port of Los Angeles (see sidebar on Page 26).

Nikola Motors of Phoenix is rebounding under new management after crippling legal and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission challenges over stock manipulation by its founder. Its long-haul trucks are slated for full production in 2024.

CARBON AND COST

The numerous options and technologies under development for clean trucks will ultimately be sorted out in the market based on cost and carbon footprint.

In terms of cost, whether hydrogen or electric is better for freight “depends on the application and how you’re using it,” says Ahmet Kusoglu, communications officer of the Million Mile initiative and staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. “It’s not just how far you go but how often you run continuously.” Hydrogen would be more cost effective, he said, in situations where you have multiple shifts using a vehicle and limited flexibility for downtime.

Those factors have played a role in perhaps the largest current deployment of hydrogen in the freight sector —to power forklifts in warehouses. They are often used around the clock and cannot generate emissions in the enclosed space. There are upwards of 50,000 hydrogen forklifts in the U.S., most previously powered by propane.

Other applications with great

Fuel cell truck at the port of Los Angeles during a year-long test pilot. [Toyota]

potential for cost effective use of hydrogen may be ferries—due to their heavy loads and frequent turnaround—and trash trucks, whose weight and stop-and-go operations can strain battery life. Urban buses may be on the margin since most are candidates for overnight charging. Still, nearly 100 fuel cell buses were under test in eight states in 2021.

While cost is of paramount importance to companies (and transit agencies) seeking to make a profit, the climate crisis and government regulations will make minimizing carbon footprints an important ongoing concern. Based on current technology, hydrogen appears to offer substantial advantages. A study the American Transportation Research Institute comparing zero-emission long-haul trucks across their lifespan—manufacture, energy production and consumption, and disposal/recycling—found hydrogen

trucks generate about 20 percent less carbon dioxide than electric trucks (and half that of diesel trucks).

The difference is mainly due to the large amounts of carbon produced in making batteries, including during often dirty mining operations and the need for recycling. (The electric trucks were assumed to require battery replacement at least once during their million-mile life.) “Ultimately, hydrogen trucks are the most environmentally friendly truck type,” said the Institute’s Jeff Short, during a presentation to the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority’s freight committee in June. That, of course, is based on today’s best estimates—technology and world markets could change it.

HYDROGEN HUBS

The prospects for using hydrogen to help power a clean economy are about to get a big boost with the award of federal grants next year to establish five or six regional “Hydrogen Hubs” around the country. The awards come from $8 billion written

Hydrogen Trucks at California Ports

The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are key testing grounds for hydrogen trucking in the U.S. The combined ports handle 40 percent of imported waterborne trade. In 2017 the ports set a goal of transitioning to zero-emissions cargo-handling equipment by 2030 and a zero-emissions drayage truck fleet by 2035. In August, the state of California adopted the same horizon for achieving zero emissions for all types of vehicle sales statewide.

A year-long test of 10 hydrogen trucks at the Port of Los Angeles concluded in September. It used hydrogen trucks jointly made by Kenworth and Toyota. One participating company, Southern Counties Express, put 3,600 miles on its hydrogen truck traveling from a rail yard to a warehouse, then from the warehouse to port terminals.

“We clearly showed that hydrogen is a viable clean fuel capable of powering commercial transportation for customers, matching diesel performance in range and power,” said Joe Adams, Kenworth’s chief engineer. Some of the trucks remain in operation for further testing.

Looking to the future, Chris Cannon, chief sustainability officer at the Port of Los Angeles, predicts that the Port will likely include a mix of electric and hydrogen trucks with the latter “used where you need more range and the duty cycle is heavy.” He gave the example of transporting containers 50 miles or more to the massive complex of warehouses at the Inland Empire. Under heavy traffic, electric trucks may be limited to one round trip per day; with greater range, hydrogen trucks could do two. “If you have a 400-mile range truck, you have a lot more flexibility in what kind of business you run,” he said.

The shift to zero-emission vehicles has been popular with drivers. Cannon said they like that “you don’t smell like diesel fuel at the end of the day,” and appreciate the “extra zip” of the high torque powertrains. Just as important he said, like everyone, “they are more conscious of the need to do things that are respectful of the environment and happy to be driving something that is environmentally sound.”

He foresees that hydrogen long-haul trucks will be commercially viable in the next “two to three years.” As for shorter-haul urban delivery vehicles, he said, “There is no reason that every single one of those shouldn’t be electric.” ●

into the Inflation Reduction Act. The loosely defined “hubs” will span entire states such as California and multistate alliances such as six states in the Northeast stretching from Maine to New Jersey.

Proposals for the hub program are still taking shape but they look to create regional hydrogen ecosystems for supplanting fossil fuels. This includes using hydrogen both as a fuel to generate heat and electricity and taking advantage of hydrogen as a flexible energy carrier—for instance, creating it to store excess energy from solar and wind generation and to supply back-up power for data centers and other energy intensive operations.

Some proposals being developed by mining and oil producing states (such as from the alliance of Utah, Texas, North Dakota and Mississippi) look to advance carbon capture technology to produce and use natural gas-based blue hydrogen.

Numerous companies are lining up to participate, including 60 in the Northeast, many involved in industrial applications such as production of steel, concrete and fertilizers.

Despite the flurry of activity in preparing hub proposals, the program has come under some criticism from environmental groups as a “nebulous concept” and for its funding of some fossil fuel-based applications. But it is a new, mostly untried approach for the federal government. In contrast to previous federal programs, “the hubs are focused on demonstration and deployment with less emphasis on fundamental science,” Los Alamos Lab’s Borup said. “It will be exciting to watch.” ●

Mark

Solof

is Director

of Public Affairs at the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority.

Large-Scale Efforts Underway to Boost ‘Green’ Hydrogen

The success of eliminating emissions from the long-haul trucking sector with hydrogen depends on enormously expanding the production of green hydrogen—that is hydrogen extracted from water using energy from wind, solar or other sustainable sources. Virtually all hydrogen now commercially available is considered gray hydrogen, which is produced mainly from natural gas through a process called “steam reforming,” which releases carbon dioxide.

The fossil fuel industry is putting billions of dollars on the line to retain much of that market. It seeks to perfect methods to capture much of the carbon from reforming and inject it deep underground in geological formations. The result is so-called “blue” hydrogen. But this process still leaks carbon into the atmosphere and has raised concerns about environmental damage.

Fishermen and residents of Livingston County, Louisiana, for instance, are now challenging a proposed carbon sequestration under a lake which they fear could destroy the lake’s ecosystem and many livelihoods. To most environmentalists, at best carbon capture is an interim solution until green hydrogen becomes widely available.

And there are large scale efforts underway to make that happen, focused on places with ample renewable energy sources. The province of Quebec in Canada is investing in plans to create an electrolysis facility using its large excess of hydropower. Denmark has drawn up plans to construct an artificial island for hydrogen

production drawing on the ample wind energy in the North Sea. Sun-baked Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries are looking to use solar and coastal wind to create a hydrogen path away from dependence on oil production. Transporting the hydrogen may be done by first converting it to ammonia, which itself can be used as fuel.

All this capacity is vitally needed. Forbes magazine estimates that the cost of the cheapest green hydrogen now being produced must be cut in half to be competitive with fossil fuel-based hydrogen. Meanwhile, researchers are pursuing sometimes exotic, though potentially breakthrough, methods for improving the efficiency of electrolysis, such as quantum dot photoelectrochemical cells.

Shaking up all these efforts is the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which has dramatically ramped up incentives for hydrogen production and innovation. It is offering up to $3 per kilogram for hydrogen production, depending on the level of carbon produced. That gives the advantage to green versus blue producers (and even opens the door to hydrogen produced from organic waste and trash). It could entirely offset production (but not distribution and other) costs for the cheapest green hydrogen and reduce more expensive fuel to $1 or so per kilogram. “With the passage of the Act, we expect a boom for our electrolyzer and green hydrogen business,” announced Andrew Marsh, chief executive of Plug Power, a leading provider of green hydrogen. ●

research exchange

TRANSIT AGENCIES VULNERABLE TO CYBER INCIDENTS

Public transit agencies in the U.S., which depend on vendors to help deliver and maintain critical technologies, are vulnerable to cyber incidents, according to new research. “Aligning the Transit Industry and Their Vendors in the Face of Increasing Cyber Risk: Recommendations for Identifying and Addressing Cybersecurity Challenges,” from the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) focuses on three key areas: cyber literacy and procurement practices; the lifecycle of technology when it comes to transit hardware; and the importance of embracing risk as a road to resiliency.

According to the report, transit agencies need to use the procurement process as an opportunity to articulate their cyber needs because the presence of such requirements in requests for proposals (RFPs) is a key driver of investment for vendors.

Hardware and software lifecycles in public transit are out of sync, creating a situation in which vehicles and other hardware designed to last for 15 years or more are being supported by or carrying software that stopped receiving security updates five years after it was launched, according to authors. “This disconnect creates serious vulnerabilities.” Multiple vendor interviews highlighted the importance of viewing organizational needs through lenses that focus on risk and security. Transit

agencies and their stakeholders can strengthen their collective cybersecurity posture including requiring that vendors for critical systems make available a security lead to assist the agency in the management of the agency’s risk. They should establish periodic and independent security audits and penetration testing of their environments.

Transit agencies should also integrate their cyber risk management program with their existing physical security risk management organization and infrastructure, creating a holistic Enterprise Risk Management program. They should also elevate security within the organization by appointing a Chief Security Officer (CSO).

The study called on federal agencies and Congress to take steps to bolster cybersecurity for transit systems around the nation.

The full report can be found at transweb.sjsu.edu/research/2113 Mark Hrywna

Research Exchange gathers brief summaries of ongoing or recently completed research about critical topics in transportation. We invite readers to suggest studies that merit inclusion.

Links to many of these studies are available at intransitionmag.org.

RAIL CONSTRUCTION IN U.S. COSTS MORE, TAKES LONGER TO FINISH

Rail transit construction projects in the United States pay a premium of roughly 50 percent per mile compared to projects in 10 peer countries and take about 8.5 months longer, on average, to complete, according to a recent report by the Eno Center for Transportation. On the Right Track: Rail Transit Project Delivery Around the World, a 27-page report released in September, examined more than 100 projects constructed in the last two decades.

The average cost per mile for primarily tunneled projects in the United States essentially doubles when New York City is included: $1.3 billion compared with $582 million, which is closer but still more than Japan ($569 million) and Germany ($509 million). Since 2000, there have been relatively few tunneled lines completed in the U.S., according to the report. The U.S. ranked third ($132 million) in average cost per mile for primarily at-grade lines, behind Mexico ($175 million) and Japan ($202 million). The report also examined case studies in Australia, Canada, Chile, Italy, Norway, and South Korea.

To establish a common baseline, Eno evaluated governance, regulation, finance, and construction on 132 rail transit projects completed in the 10 nations since 2000.

“Despite the wide cost variation for both tunneled and at-grade projects, we found no discernable relationship between a country’s transit construction costs and its system of government, level of centralization in planning and financing, or use of common versus civil law.”

At-grade projects in the U.S. take, on average, three months longer to construct, while below-ground projects take more than nine months longer than similar projects abroad.

The report is at a loss to explain the cost and timeline premium in the U.S. but makes several recommendations in the areas of governance, processes, and standards:

• Leaders in the U.S. need to increase the public and political appeal of building rail transit.

• Project sponsors need to focus on making sure their institution has the right governance, authorities, and staff to lead a megaproject.

• The most successful projects use traditional methods but agencies should consider procuring projects using public-private partnerships (P3s) when warranted.

• Project sponsors should keep construction contracts relatively small, even if it means breaking up lines into segments.

• Project management and oversight need to be led by public sector staff.

• Frequent, early stakeholder coordination needs to be a priority.

• It’s important to gather public input on project details, but project managers should be empowered to make decisions without subjecting every detail to lengthy community consultation.

• The U.S. should learn from other countries’ efforts to further streamline reviews for environmentally beneficial transit projects.

• The public sector should refine and improve formalized assessment models to better evaluate projects and bidders.

• Transit agency staff should participate in study tours and learn about best practices in other places.

—Mark Hrywna

BIG VEHICLES RESULT IN MORE SEVERE PEDESTRIAN INJURIES, HOSPITAL CHARGES

Larger vehicles are involved in pedestrian and bicyclist crashes with more severe injuries that result in higher hospital charges, according to a new research paper, while children are

eight times more likely to die when struck by a sport utility vehicle (SUV) compared with those hit by passenger cars.

“Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity” examines the relationship between the type of vehicle striking pedestrians and cyclists and the medical outcomes of their victims. The paper, by Mickey Edwards and Daniel Leonard, was published in the Journal of Safety Research, a quarterly, peer-reviewed academic journal that covers all aspects of safety and health research. The paper linked Illinois crash and hospital records for the years 2016 through 2018, using an advanced method developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Children are eight times more likely to die when struck by a sport utility vehicle (SUV) compared to those hit by a passenger car.

Fatalities among motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists alike were on the decline in the United States starting around 1980 but diverged

research exchange

in 2009 as pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities began rising—an increase that coincides with the rise of large vehicles on American roads, continuing a trend that began years earlier.

Passenger car sales in the U.S. dropped at an annual rate of 2.4 percent from 2008 to 2018 while pickup truck sales increased at an annual rate of 6.4 percent . In 2008, light trucks were about 40 percent of light vehicles produced and by 2018 they were nearly half.

Pedestrians struck by a pickup truck were 50% more likely to be killed compared to those struck by a passenger car while those hit by light trucks (including SUVs, vans/mini-

can be estimated by relying only on crash databases, according to other studies cited in the paper. Pedestrian and bicyclist crashes disproportionately affect poor and minority communities, perhaps to a greater degree than previously believed. Blacks were found to be overrepresented as pedestrian and bicyclist crash victims.

—Mark Hrywna

CALIFORNIA: DECLINE IN TRAFFIC CONGESTION INCREASED CRASH SEVERITY AFTER PANDEMIC

Highway travel and motor vehicle crashes dropped substantially in California during the response to

it partially or completely offsets the ‘VMT effect’ of reduced vehicle miles traveled on total fatalities,” write Jonathan E. Hughes, Daniel Kaffine, and Leah Kaffine in “Decline in Traffic Congestion Increased Crash Severity in the Wake of COVID19,” published in the Transportation Research Record.

Highway driving decreased by about 22 percent and total crashes decreased by 49 percent in the first 11 weeks of the pandemic, according to the 12-page paper. Average speeds increased by 2 to 3 MPH across California and in some counties increased as much as 10 and 15 MPH. The proportion of severe crashes increased almost 5 percentage points, or 25 percent. “While fatalities decreased initially following restrictions, increased speeds mitigated the effect of lower vehicle miles traveled on fatalities, yielding little to no reduction in fatalities later in the COVID period,” according to the study.

Since many parts of the U.S. experienced similar reductions in VMT as California, results likely generalize to congested urban highways outside the research sample. Policies aimed at reducing highway fatalities should focus on the causes of severe crashes, the authors advocate.

vans, and pickup trucks) had higher rates of severe brain injury (33 percent) relative to those hit by cars.

The true scope of pedestrian and bicyclist crashes could be worse than

the COVID-19 pandemic but the frequency of severe crashes increased because of lower traffic congestion and higher highway speeds.

“This ‘speed effect’ is largest in counties with high pre-existing levels of congestion, and we show

“Our estimates show reductions in driving led to a substantial drop in total crashes, due in large part to a reduction in minor crashes. However, speed increases from lower congestion led to a greater proportion of severe crashes and increased

fatalities. Policies aimed at reducing all types of crashes could have the unintended effect of increasing fatal crashes.”

—Mark Hrywna

TRAFFIC DEATHS SURGE IN U.S. Despite a decline in driving rates during the pandemic, the U.S. saw a surge in traffic deaths and continues to be an outlier among developed nations.

Smart Growth America’s Dangerous By Design 2022 was based on average yearly deaths per 100,000 people from 2016 to 2020. The report used data from 2016 to 2020 because it takes time for all data for a year to come into the NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).

The U.S suffers higher traffic crash deaths than 28 other developed nations, which have a much better safety record before COVID and saw pedestrian fatalities decrease during the pandemic despite other variables being the same. Walking trips increased in every state and metro area regardless of weather, climate or demographics but more walking led to more deaths, despite a reduction in traffic.

Florida led the way with seven of the top 20 most dangerous metropolitan areas, followed by California with four and North Carolina with three. Only 19 of the 100 metropolitan areas saw fatality rates decline, albeit with marginal decreases, while 81 metros got worse.

Some 60 percent of 2020 deaths occurred on non-interstate, arterial

highways, which only make up about 15 percent of roads. Perceptions are important when people decide whether to walk to the local store or to school. Only 1 in 7 people, about 14 percent, said they have access to streets that make walking safe and easy.

A third of those surveyed said they live in neighborhoods where drivers followed speed limits.

“Low-income communities are significantly less likely to have access to parks and other opportunities for safe recreational walking and are less likely to have sidewalks, marked crosswalks, and street design to support safer, slow speeds,” according to the report. “Lower-income neighborhoods are also much more likely to contain major arterial roads built for high speeds and higher traffic volumes at intersections, exacerbat-

ing dangerous conditions for people walking.”

Early estimates from the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) haven’t shown much improvement: 7,485 people walking were struck and killed in 2021, which would be the highest number in 40 years. It would be one of the largest single-year jumps in decades, between 11 percent and 13 percent in one year. The latest estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed marginal improvement during the second quarter of 2022, with fatalities down almost 5 percent, but still up 0.5 percent for the first half of 2022 after a 7.3-percent spike in the first quarter.

—Mark Hrywna

Microtransit

continued from page 13

explain that it’s open to the public, anyone can ride it, it is fully incorporated into the broader system.”

Ever since the advent of appbased ride hailing, companies like Uber and Lyft have been accused of eating into public transit’s market share. Whether microtransit will lure meaningful numbers of discretionary riders back, even at fares as low as $1, remains to be seen. But that’s not necessarily the goal, nor is it the driving force behind microtransit’s proliferation.

“I don’t see it as direct competition” to ride-hailing services, NarulaWoods said. “We don’t expect people to be exclusively Micro riders. For us, it’s about how can we become a regular part of what you do each week than can we replace a single mode?” ●

Josh Stephens is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

Transit agencies struggle continued from page 19

state ridership within New Jersey is at about 75 percent.

If people are still apprehensive about taking mass transit and wary of high gas prices to jump in the car, maybe other options will emerge?

Citi Bike, New York City’s bike

share program, saw 92,300 daily trips in May 2022, up 45 percent from May 2019. Part of that growth was the expansion from 777 stations in 2019 to 1,548. All those figures continued to grow as of July with each bike used an average of 4.13 times per day.

ABOUT INTRANSITION’S SPONSORS

North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA)—The Metropolitan Planning Organization (or MPO) for the 13-county Northern New Jersey region. Serving 7 million people, the NJTPA is the fifth-largest MPO in the nation. The NJTPA offices are located in Newark, N.J. (973) 639-8400, njtpa.org.

New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)—New Jersey’s science and technology university enrolls more than 9,000 students in nearly 100 degree programs. NJIT is located in the University Heights section of Newark on a 45-acre campus, njit.edu.

Across the Hudson in Jersey City, New Jersey, Citi Bike experienced the smallest drop in ridership during the pandemic compared with other options, according to JC on the Move, a study exploring innovative and emerging transportation modes to address service gaps in New Jersey’s second-largest city.

It’s not exactly a jetpack or flying car but a recent Bloomberg report looked at how bikeshare programs stepped in when transit systems were down, citing a North American Bikeshare and Scootershare Association study that “bikeshare systems can help boost transit ridership when they’re better integrated.” ●

Mark Hrywna is the editor of InTransition magazine.

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