Electric buses

Our 30 long-range New Flyer buses have been in operation on our regular bus routes since 2019. They have a range of 250 kilometres and are equipped with air conditioning to ensure customer comfort.

The advantages of electric buses

• More comfortable thanks to smoother handling on the road
• Quieter ride
• LED lighting

Depending on the bus configuration:

• Air conditioning
• USB ports
• Second reserved area for wheelchair users
• Charger plug

36 Monk

Our first fully electric bus hit the road in 2017. Today, there are seven fast-charging electric buses that run out of the Lasalle bus garage. Three are dedicated to line 36 Monk, making it the first fully electric line in Canada.

Our buses charging at Angrignon station (left) and Square-Victoria–OACI station (right) during the launch of the City Mobility project.

Watch a clip about our electric buses in the show Découverte (in French only)

Our lab at the Stinson bus garage

We’ve been electrifying our infrastructure to make it compatible with electric buses. The Stinson bus garage was the first to be partially electrified.

Stinson has been our lab for all things electrification since 2019, which is when we began running tests with the charging technologies at the garage to find the best ways to maximize the use of our electric buses.

The garage is equipped with pantographs and charger plugs with a capacity of 150 kWh. This is the minimum power required to achieve the ideal charging time and optimize service delivery with electric buses.

We’ve already equipped our Angrignon and Square-Victoria–OACI stations with two outdoor pantographs to charge the electric buses on line 36 Monk.

We’ve also installed pantographs inside the Stinson bus garage. And because a bus garage never sleeps, we had to pull out all the stops! Keeping the bus aisles clear and protecting the work areas without disrupting service is a challenge in itself. We were one of the first transit agencies to install indoor pantographs.

We now have nine indoor pantographs at the Stinson bus garage.

The charger plugs are very safe and can be handled without special gear. We installed 44 outlets like this, plus two mobile chargers for the maintenance area.

Using a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, we can view and monitor the buses’ charge status remotely and make sure that buses are recharged as needed.

Above are the 12 chargers that power the buses in the four electrically equipped aisles. Since this equipment generates heat, we installed a ventilation and air conditioning system to control the room temperature.