JOHNSONBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has announced the Trillium CNG team has been selected for the department’s Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) transit fueling station Public-Private Partnership (P3) project.
The Trillium CNG team includes the Larson Design Group of Williamsport.
The $84.5 million project will see Trillium “design, build, finance, operate and maintain CNG fueling stations at 29 public transit agency sites” throughout the Commonwealth. A few of those sites include Area Transportation Authority (ATA) facilities in Bradford, Johnsonburg and DuBois.
However, the use of CNG to power public transportation is not a new concept for ATA.
ATA Chief Executive Officer Mike Imbrogno said his company started using CNG fueled vehicles in 1989 and has continued to do so for approximately 20 years. Imbrogno said as their CNG powered small, heavy duty buses started to wear out, they were replaced with clean diesel.
Imbrogno said the move to clean diesel was made at the end of the original CNG program because American bus manufacturers ceased production on natural gas powered engines. He said their initial desire was to replace them with other CNG-based equipment, but were unable to do so.
Imbrogno said their facilities in the area were equipped with CNG fueling stations for the buses. He said the one at the Johnsonburg facility currently is “in mothballs,” in spite of being a state-of-the-art compression station in 2000.
Imbrogno recalled ATA having a good experience with CNG the first time around. He said there were some issues, but the fuel burned clean and prolonged the lives of the engines of the vehicles, noting they were able to operate the CNG vehicles for 20 years — 10 years past their expected lifespan.
The state decided to throw its support behind the use of natural gas powered public transit vehicles last year, according to Imbrogno. He said the main reason was due to the natural gas produced by unconventional well production in the state over the last several years. However, PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards said the impact of the project goes beyond natural gas production, and is actually saving agencies $10 million annually by making the switch to CNG.
“With Pennsylvania’s natural gas resources, this project will not only bring efficiencies for transit agencies and the state,” Richards said, “but we’re also helping establish a foothold for the CNG transportation market in areas that may not have seen this opportunity for some time.”
ATA offered the state knowledge they gained through their 20 years of experience with CNG fueled vehicles, Imbrogno said, but they were never called for any technical guidance.
However, Imbrogno said their sites were visited by the state and vendors interested in the Trillium project. He said they asked general questions, such as the types of vehicles, operating hours of the facilities, and any special equipment which were on site.
Imbrogno said “there may or may not be public fueling” at the ATA CNG fueling sites.
Since ATA started replacing their vehicles eight years ago, Imbrogno does not foresee a significant amount of their current fleet being replaced. However, he noted they would be “willing to do what needs to be done” and start running CNG again if they are asked by the state to do so.
The Bradford and Johnsonburg sites are slated for CNG fueling stations in 2019.
