CANADIAN TRANSIT FLEET SWITCHING TO NATURAL GAS

On Friday, Union Gas of Hamilton, Ontario, announced it is partnering with the City of Hamilton to build and maintain a CNG station that will fuel the city’s transit bus fleet. The new station will have the capacity to allow the city’s fleet of natural gas buses to grow from the current 35 vehicles to a total of 120 vehicles over the next six years, and it will replace an existing station at the city’s transit facility that is nearing end of life. The transportation sector is Ontario’s largest energy consumer, using 34 percent of all energy consumed in 2010, and represents the single largest remaining share of Ontario’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. “We are excited about the opportunity that the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel presents for the City of Hamilton to benefit both from an economic and environmental perspective,” said Geoff Lupton, director of energy, fleet & traffic for the City of Hamilton’s corporate assets & strategic planning division. It is anticipated that fueling the initial 35 buses with CNG versus diesel will save the City over $1.9 million in fuel costs over the next two years.