As part of their Environmental Master Plan, the City of Red Deer unveiled 17 new compressed natural gas (CNG) transit buses at the Civic Yard this morning.

16 of those buses were purchased by the City, while 1 bus was paid for by Red Deer County, and will be used by Red Deer transit for service to the County.

The city used $5 million of its federal Gas Tax Fund allocation, as well as $10.1 million in provincial GreenTRIP funding to pay for the new buses. They used about 600 thousand of their own dollars to cover fuel and capital reserves.

The buses will be quieter, greener, and cheaper to operate, something Transit Manager George Penny says will help the Cities bottom line now and in the future.

“Basically 30% of our fleet will move from diesel to CNG, compressed natural gas. Clean burning, lower emissions which is really green, part of the environmental. And I think by in large everyone is really pleased with the new fleet that we are going to introduce. As I say it`s cheaper for us to maintain, and the cost of the CNG is about 30% less than diesel fuel, so the cost for the city is a little bit less."

Transit expects to see a savings on fuel as the cost of CNG fuel is approximately 44% less than diesel, and buses get 33% better mileage using CNG.

The new buses also require less maintenance, allowing staff to use their time and resources on other projects.

In addition to the new transit buses, the project also included the construction of a CNG fuelling station, as well as upgrade to the bus storage facility and maintenance garage at the Civic yards.

Those upgrades include improvements to gas detection monitoring, electrical, heating, and air handling systems to accommodate the new CNG buses.

(A few of the brand new CNG buses unveilved at a press conference this morning at the Civic Yards in Red Deer this morning. 17 of them are currently in operation on city streets)