Linn Shuttle’s two new buses stand out from the other 10 vehicles in its fleet in their appearance and tahe way they function.
The new buses are propane-powered; the others are diesel.
They’re easy to spot – they have wrap-around graphics to promote Linn Shuttle, Linn-Benton Community College’s Advanced Transportation Technology Center, and AmeriGas Propane.
Ken Bronson, Linn Shuttle manager, said he got the idea while at an ODOT conference. He saw what other counties were doing. Tillamook was able to promote its county throughout the transit route with a graphic wrap around its vehicles.
“I (thought) ‘Well, we have two new buses coming on here. We’ve got to paint the bus anyway. Let’s make it the best benefit we can to promote what’s local here,’” Bronson said Monday, Jan. 12, during an unveiling of the buses at the ATTC facility in Lebanon.
The new vehicles are from Blue Bird and they have factory-built Ford V10 propane-powered engines. They are replacing Ford and Chevy vehicles, both with diesel engines.
“The Chevy had 255,000 miles,” Bronson said. The day after the buses were purchased, the transmission went out on the Chevy.
By state allotment, buses need to be replaced at 250,000 miles or every seven years, Bronson said.
This year, that changed to 250,000 and seven years.
“That’s a bone of contention with a number of us transit programs because that makes a big difference,” Bronson said. “We far exceed the mileage before the years.”
Linn Shuttle runs throughout Linn County, with stops in Sweet Home, Lebanon and Albany.
“In a place like Corvallis Transit, they exceed the years before the miles,” Bronson said. “They’re not going very far and we’re going a long ways.”
Comparing the first six months of this fiscal year versus last year, Linn Shuttle;’s overall ridership is up about 10 percent and student ridership is up 4 percent, he said.
While researching the cost of maintenance, Bronson spoke with representatives from the Bend-LaPine School District. That district runs both diesel and propane buses.
Bronson said Bend-LaPine sees a savings of about $5,000 per propane bus.
Linn Shuttle has only been running the buses for less than two weeks but at the end of December, the fuel cost was 3 percent lower.
The vehicles are fueled in Sweet Home through AmeriGas Propane.
“There are a lot of hotels in the Portland area that are switching over to propane-powered shuttle vans,” said Becky Everetts, of AmeriGas Propane. “We’re pushing for it, so (the partnership with Linn Shuttle) is definitely a great start for us.”
To comply with the Ford warranty on the new vehicles, the oil must be changed every 5,000 miles.
Bronson envisions this as an opportunity for students at the ATTC to compare oil samples of diesel buses with that of the propane buses.
“This is the wave of the future,” Bronson said. “The training facility is going to be a big part of it.”
For more information on Linn Shuttle, visit http://www.linnshuttle.com or call (541) 367-4775.