Transport committee  We expect to take delivery of our first CNG vehicles at the tail end of this year.

Transport committee  Probably 18 months. We want to run it through two winters to make sure we address our cold weather concerns.

Transport committee  Our original study was on 200, but we are building a facility that can cope with 400.

Transport committee  That's our estimate right now, yes.

Transport committee  It's the initial capital cost upfront. You need to be able to build the fuelling infrastructure.

Transport committee  We are looking at a P3 model for the facility, as I mentioned, which is the biggest part of the infrastructure. In terms of other advanced funding available from the city, I guess we have to fit within the budget of the rest of the city demands.

Transport committee  I can't speak for the detail of the city debt, but if we were to procure 400 buses—for argument's sake—even if they weren't CNG, that's still a commitment of around about $160 million. It's not that the city isn't putting money into the investment that's needed. It's just that th

Transport committee  I think essentially that was one of the recommendations I was making in terms of saying maybe we can get something along the lines of an interest-free loan that ends up getting paid back out of our operating budget. That's kind of the model that we're....

Transport committee  I can't speak too much for the residential areas, but in terms of larger vehicles, if we I look at the U.S., they have significant federal support for new green vehicle procurements. I believe at the moment that green buses in the U.S. are funded by the federal government to the

Transport committee  I don't see any barriers there right now actually. That's certainly not anything we've experienced. In terms of the buses, there are only really four major bus manufacturers in North America, two of which are in Canada, so that's been okay for us.

Transport committee  Hamilton already operates a natural gas fleet, but that's an older fleet. There have been significant changes in the CNG technology from about 2007 when Cummins Westport developed a new engine, which made the vehicles more comparable in terms of performance, in terms of reliabili

Transport committee  I was a little unclear about who had jurisdiction over it. There was little guidance on a CNG maintenance facility of the scale that we were looking at. Natural gas is available in houses and homes and the building code is quite clear, but it becomes different when you go to a la

Transport committee  We fuel our own vehicles. We use our own fuelling stations, but we need to have things like high-pressure gas lines brought to our premises. These things are currently not there, so there are infrastructure costs.

Transport committee  Yes, and there are high-pressure gas lines as well, which are sometimes difficult to route through residential areas. There may be coding against that, but we're not sure. We know that high-pressure gas lines are needed. Otherwise, at the fuelling facility, you need to build exte

Transport committee  We haven't had any formal discussions with any of the gas suppliers yet, but we comfortably think a five- to ten-year window should be achievable. That's compared to diesel right now, where really all anybody is willing to lock in to is a six-month contract and possibly up to a y