Franklin Community Schools will introduce its first three propane buses this week in an effort to save money and cut down on pollution.
The buses are partially funded by a grant award from Volkswagen, and the school district is expecting reduced fuel and maintenance costs. The first three buses arrive on Friday, and another five will follow, said Doug Dickenson, transportation director for Franklin schools.
The buses could also help the schools avoid transportation delays during the winter.
Propane buses can start at temperatures as low as -30 degrees with no heater and have much lower levels of nitrogen emissions than diesel buses. The buses are also quieter and don’t emit the same noxious odor as diesel buses, he said.
“The fuel cost is less and diesel bus maintenance is so much more expensive. They have a lot of parts on them so they can meet emissions requirements and they’re more costly to maintain. They have more problems and take longer to heat up in the winter. They have more starting problems. You have to plug them in with gas heaters,” Dickenson said.
With savings in maintenance, fuel, and oil change costs, a propane bus costs $3,500 less per year compared to a diesel bus and $1,700 less per year compared to a gasoline bus. Franklin schools has 19 gasoline buses of its fleet of 74, the rest of which are diesel. The cost of purchasing a diesel and propane bus is the same, while gasoline buses are about $10,000 cheaper, Dickenson said.
“They’re all pros from what I’ve read and the people I talked to about them,” Dickenson said when asked about the pros and cons of propane buses. “Drivers love them. They’re 40 percent quieter than diesel buses, you don’t have to plug them in and they heat up quicker.”
The buses likely won’t start picking up students for another two weeks, as they will have to be inspected by state police. The buses will include seatbelts, as will all new buses at Franklin schools moving forward, Dickenson said.
The grant from Volkswagen is part of a settlement after the vehicle company was found guilty of violating the Clean Air Act for 590,000 diesel vehicles from model years 2009 to 2016. Those vehicles had what are known as defeat devices, which allowed them to cheat federal inspection, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Franklin schools was the only district in Johnson County to get the grant award during this cycle, as Volkswagen agreed to pay 25 percent of the cost of eight diesel buses. The total amount of the award was $226,667, with the total cost of the buses at $906,667, or about $113,333 per bus. Franklin schools was one of 16 Indiana school districts to get a grant award during this award cycle, according to the state.
With the first three propane buses arriving, the district will retire three diesel buses that are more than a decade old to fulfill the requirements of the settlement award. If Franklin schools decides to take the engines out of those buses, they could potentially be analyzed as part of a diesel mechanics academic unit but any final decisions on what to do with those retired buses hasn’t been made yet, Dickenson said.
