LPG buses in (sweet home) Alabama

Mobile County is Alabama's largest school district, so a fleet of economical school buses definitely comes in handy. The vehicles have been unveiled recently and will enter service for the 2014/2015 school year. The uncovering ceremony was attended by some officials, including State Senator Rusty Glover and MCPSS Transportation Director Pat Mitchell.

Propane is cheaper, cleaner and domestically produced. This is an environmental initiative I can get behind.

Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey

© Roush CleanTechThe bus launch ceremony was attended by Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey, MCPSS Transportation Director Pat Mitchell, State Sen. Rusty Glover and Blue Bird Chief Commercial Officer Dale Wendell

Buying autogas-powered buses is much more than art for art's sake – it is estimated that in the course of its technological lifetime each bus will displace 40 thousand gallons (approx. 151,6 thousand litres) of diesel fuel and emit by 150 thousand pounds (67,5 tons) less carbon dioxide than diesel-powered counterparts. That's quite something already, but obviously the aim is also to save money spent on fuel.

According to Blue Bird, manufacturer of the buses, the Mobile County school authority will monitor the efficiency of their vehicles and share the gathered data with other school districts who are interested in switching their fleets to LPG and could use such information to make a better decision. In fact, before autogas buses were chosen, the district’s transportation department collected data from districts that had used such vehicles before.

As all the Blue Bird Propane Vision autogas buses we wrote about before, the ones soon to be used in Alabama are also equipped with Roush CleanTech LPG systems, supplying the engines with liquid state autogas. We are sure Alabama will get nothing but positive feedback from their vehicles and encourage more school authorities across the US to use similar ones. Be warned that if more such news pops up, we will inform you again...