Metro Magazine, December 2020

Calif s Victor Valley Transit Authority awarded Keolis Transit America a contract to operate its bus service in San Bernardino County Calif The contract worth approximately 130 million gives Keolis responsibility to operate and maintain 127 buses 91 of which run on natural gas and seven of which are electric for a period of five years with the option to extend it for an additional five years BUSINESS BRIEFS ABC Lightning team to electrify motorcoaches ABC Companies together with Lightning eMotors formerly known as Lightning Systems partnered to create a five step process for identifying assessing and converting a wide range of donor diesel motorcoach models that fit the criteria for fast track battery electric conversion The repower kits are engineered by Lightning and will be installed by ABC technicians In addition to providing a full range of motorcoach zero emission vehicle repower options ABC will also be an authorized referral agent for repowering many popular shuttle vans and cutaway applications Texass Denton County Transportation Authority approved the handover of the maintenance of the existing GTW rail fleet to Stadler and Rio Grande Pacific Corp Together Stadler and RGPC are now contracted to provide all services to DCTA including train operations and dispatch maintenance of equipment and facilities maintenance of way signals and communications 54 St Louis Metro introduced the first two of 14 battery electric articulated buses The 60 foot heavy duty buses are manufactured by New Flyer of America Inc Four 40 foot battery electric buses made by GILLIG are scheduled to be delivered early next year All 18 of the zero emission electric buses are funded through a combination of FTA grants and local sales tax sources Amtrak selected dFuzion Inc s rMetrix a performance assessment system for vehicle and track interaction analysis on its Amfleet and Viewliner in service revenue cars With rMetrix inspectors can monitor collect and analyze geo spatially correlated ride quality data and make safety and maintenance recommendations in real time With rMetrix organizations can also analyze and correlate ride data over time and geography to determine data trends AECOM launched Mobilitics for Pandemic Response an updated version of its groundbreaking transportation scenario planning tool originally launched in 2018 The latest iteration helps transit agencies departments of transportation and other clients across the U S assess how pandemic infection rates stay at home orders availability and deployment of a vaccine economic recovery and re opening and other factors are expected to impact transportation patterns to help clients better recover and strengthen resiliency Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District and Masabi launched a new contactless and COVID safe mobile ticketing solution Santa Cruz METRO Splash Pass that will make riding public transit easier and more convenient in Santa Cruz County and on the Highway 17 Express The METRO Splash Pass powered by Masabis Justride platform can be downloaded from Google Play and the Apple App Store Beep will deploy its first autonomous shuttles at Yellowstone National Park with the National Parks Service in May 2021 The pilot program will test multi passenger electric automated vehicle platforms to provide visitors a safe innovative and eco friendly transportation alternative while exploring Yellowstone C TRAN is extending the regions Hop Fastpass a contactless fare payment system created by INIT to include its C VAN paratransit service The electronic fare system is a regional account based system shared by TriMet C TRAN and Portland Streetcar and provides cross state services within the Portland Vancouver metropolitan region Once implemented paratransit riders can simply tap and ride C VAN METRO MAGAZINE COM FACT BOOK 2021