Transport committee  Sometimes a bus will be run or left idling for a long time, particularly in cold weather, because starting it is an issue. That's all. Just firing them up in the morning can sometimes be problematic, and then sending them straight down to service as cold buses. So sometimes they need to be left idling.

Transport committee  That's just stopped at traffic lights and transfer points, and those kinds of things.

Transport committee  The biggest issue with weight on a CNG bus is simply the fuel tank, as I'm sure you can imagine. You've seen the tanks. They're the full length of a 40-foot bus, more or less. The technology in the construction of those fuel tanks has been improving significantly over the years, to the stage where now the tank is double-walled, but it is made of materials that are considerably lighter than those that were used probably even five years ago.

Transport committee  I'm not really aware of any impediments right now. It's more a lack of guidelines as much as anything else. I sound like a broken record, but there could be more incentives to be able to transition. It is an expensive deal to operate a fleet of 1,000 diesel buses, and to try to transition over is an expensive proposition.

Transport committee  I think on the basis of an earlier discussion it sounds as though they may be provincial guidelines that we're looking for.

Transport committee  I'm sorry. I can't speak to the home fuelling station. That's not an area I've been looking at.

Transport committee  I think there are probably more safety issues with propane than with CNG. We tried propane some time ago I believe for smaller auxiliary vehicles, but not on our actual fleet. We can buy smaller buses that are propane powered, but CNG has the benefit, in terms of fuel supply, that you can basically have a pipe come into your facility for fuel, whereas propane, LNG, still has to be to be delivered by a truck.

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  Sure. The only difference between LNG and CNG is the level of compression. CNG is compressed to a certain level, and LNG is compressed more to take it to a liquefied state. To keep it in that state it has to be kept cold. The only reason we didn't really look at LNG is the delivery of fuel.

Transport committee  That doesn't make a lot of sense to me either.

Transport committee  A natural gas bus will be marginally greener than a diesel bus right now. But the other benefits we get will be that the bus will be quieter, certainly sitting and idling, as I mentioned earlier on.

Transport committee  By electric bus systems, I assume you mean hybrid buses. Fully electric buses are being developed, but again they suffer from the same problems as the electric car. There's next to no range on them. Hybrid electric buses still have diesel engines in them. When they run, they still make noise just like the diesel bus.

Transport committee  In terms of safety, we have already seen a number of videos from various CNG suppliers that show CNG tanks on buses that have been shot, that have been set fire to, that have been driven into walls, and there is zero explosion with these things. In terms of safety, CNG in many ways is probably safer than diesel.

Transport committee  I think the fact that they are willing to order these numbers, on top of their existing fleets, says that they're still comfortable with it.

Transport committee  In New York they've taken an order of 200 CNG buses, just this year, I believe.