Throughout the completion of the four year project, the Mid-Atlantic Electric School Bus Experience Project (MEEP) allowed coalitions to provide school districts an opportunity to explore electric school bus technology. In select local districts in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Washington DC, this project supported the opportunity to utilize free short-term electric school bus demonstrations in order for districts to learn and become familiar with the equipment.
While the funding and hype around electric school buses made it more challenging to secure buses for long-term demonstrations, it enabled the project team to uplift and support school districts, especially disadvantaged school districts, in their electric school bus journeys.
MEEP was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and included staff from Virginia Clean Cities, New Jersey Clean Cities, Eastern Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Transportation, Greater Washington Region Clean Cities Coalition, Maryland Clean Cities and VEIC.
Main Components of MEEP
The MEEP team succeeded with aspects where we:
- Provided user level introduction to electric school bus technology in the region
- Engaged with stakeholders to provide a wide range of information about electric school buses
- Allowed school districts to gain experience with electric school buses from multiple manufacturers for an extended period of time
- Evaluated vehicle performance (including comparisons to baseline conventional vehicles)
- Provided findings that can contribute to the advancement of domestic cleaner fuel technology
Project Summary Information
Event Hosting
The graphic above entails a summary of the events held throughout the duration of the project.
Further Accomplishments
In order to increase the presence of electric school buses, the team prioritized communication and collaboration with crucial entities to allow electric school buses to succeed.
Current Electric School Buses in Virginia
Map courtesy of Generation180
Over the past years, we have seen increased funding for electric school buses from public
and private sources. This map entails the number of electric school buses introduced over the course of the project. These numbers are continuing to grow, with more funding opportunities being announced and awarded.
In addition to the dozens of events and outreach and education materials created through the project, the connections fostered between Clean Cities Coalitions, school districts, local utilities, and electric school bus dealers and manufacturers, worked to better align community and environmental organizations.
For more information regarding electric school buses, please visit our resources page.