DART GOES HYBRID

DART First State introduced two new diesel-electric hybrid buses to its New Castle County fleet on Monday. The low floor buses, built by Gillig, have a similar drivetrain to SEPTA's New Flyer hybrid buses operating out of Southern Depot.

"This bus uses the most efficient hybrid architecture available in the world today, and is an important initiative in our three-prong hybrid technology approach that is designed to provide our customers fuel economy gains and reduced emissions in a wide variety of products," said Tom Stephens, group vice president of GM Powertrain. "We have developed a second generation advanced hybrid system, based on this hybrid bus technology that will be applied to GM full-size sport utility vehicles and pickups during the next few years."

DTC Executive Director Ray Miller stated, "These colorful hybrid electric-diesel buses represent our continuing commitment to provide our riders with the latest in leading edge technology that will improve our efficiency, save us fuel costs, and help reduce harmful emissions. We're very pleased to be bringing these new hybrid buses into our fleet to better serve our riders." DART Press Release

These are believed to be the first new hybrid buses built by Gillig. It's very interesting that DART, which had purchased nearly 60 Gillig Phantoms in 1995-96 and 7 Advantage low-floor buses in 2001, has decided to purchase hybrids from Gillig after a major purchase from NABI a few years ago.