Tranzit won the award for its commitment to producing zero-emissions bus fleets
A commitment to decarbonising its bus fleet has earned New Zealand family-owned transport and tourism company Tranzit Group one of the top awards at the 2 Degrees Wellington Regional Business Excellence Awards.
Tranzit was awarded the Environmental Excellence Award at the Lower Hutt Events Centre for its industry leading initiatives and investment in electric buses and supporting infrastructure.
Accepting the award on behalf of Tranzit Group, project manager James Howard told the audience that the most pressing issue facing the transport industry was the decarbonisation of its fleet.
“In the cities we operate in, we want to ensure people can travel on clean, quiet and zero emissions buses so what we are doing is investing heavily in electric buses and electric bus charging infrastructure to support our journey,” Howard says.
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“I want to thank EECA (Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority) for co-funding some of our projects, to our company directors for having such great foresight to begin this decarbonisation journey seven years ago and to our team for making it happen.”
Tranzit is committed to a sustainable future and currently operates 32 electric buses – 30 double deck e-buses (EVDD) in Wellington and one single deck in both Auckland and Palmerston North. Tranzit will introduce more EVDDs into Wellington and another single deck e-bus into regional NZ in 2023. These EVDDs are built in Tauranga at Kiwi Bus Builders using best global parts.
To support Tranzit’s growing electric bus fleet, the company has invested in and built charging infrastructure.
It includes:
- two super-fast 450 kW chargers – one located in Island Bay and one in the soon-to-be completed Wellington Interchange in Thorndon.
- a total of 1080kW installed at Grenada depot, north of Wellington.
- a 1MW substation installed at Rongotai depot, with a 300kW upgrade planned for later in 2022.
- a 120kW charger operational at Palmerston North depot.
- a portable 25kW charger at its new Taupō depot.
In addition, the company came up with an alternative solution to decarbonising bus fleets by successfully converting a diesel double deck bus to 100 per cent electric in 2021 in a Southern Hemisphere first innovation.
This conversion took place in Tranzit’s Masterton workshop and trials undertaken this year in Wellington and in Auckland, proved its operational and financial viability. Tranzit is proposing to convert more of its diesel buses to electric to help meet New Zealand’s public transport decarbonization goals on time. This proposal is currently before government officials.
Keven Snelgrove, Tranzit’s director of transport and operations. says meeting the New Zealand government’s commitments and priorities outlined in the Emissions Reduction Plan will take coordinated and considered action across a range of central government ministries and agencies, regional authorities and public transport operators.
“No single organisation can work in isolation to achieve our collective commitment and Tranzit is actively working to bring together these organisations with the view plan the most effective way to transition our national fleet of diesel buses to zero emissions,” Snelgrove says.
“This includes building new electric buses but also offering alternative solutions.”