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Projects Updates for Support the MTD Bus System

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  1. ISC and Staff Tour of MTD Facilities

    Associated Project(s): 

    Members of the ISC, and Sarthak Prasad attended a tour of MTD Facilities. This tour included a QnA session, and a walking tour of the facilities. Participants were shown the MTD hydrogen processing as well as a tour of one of the two hydrogen buses MTD currently operates. This tour facilitated many conversations that the student and staff attendees initiated. Please see the attached images of the hydrogen energy processing facility.

  2. This Week in Research

    What do giant grasses, micro grids, deep wells, and hydrogen-powered buses all have in common? They are all part of a clean energy future that is being imagined, created, and tested here at UIUC. The breadth of our energy research portfolio, across all of the campus and the broader C-U community, is truly impressive. Here are just a few examples:

    Solar Farm 2.0 will soon be home to a newly awarded, $10M project led by Madhu Khanna to optimize the design of "Agrivoltaics," or fields with both crops and solar panels to maintain crop production, produce renewable energy, and increase farm profitability. A few miles to the east, the Energy Farm boasts extensive test plots to study how to grow and use plants as biofuel. The farm is using a ...Expand »

  3. Update on MTD's transition to clean energy vehicles

    Associated Project(s): 

    We currently have 94 hybrids in our fleet of 111 vehicles, which makes us 85% hybrid. However, we have 11 more hybrids being made right now as replacement vehicles that are supposed to start arriving in the next week. At that point, we’ll have 105 hybrids, making up 95% of the fleet. I know that’s starting now and will certainly be done by the end of the year, but I don’t the exact timeline (I would imagine within a few months we’ll have them all, though).

    We did order the two hydrogen buses that will be arriving later this year and then go into service in 2021. We did design that fueling station to be scalable, because we feel really good about this technology and think it holds a lot of promise for us, so if it does work out, the station...Expand »

  4. Near Far Without a Car Flyer

    Facilities & Services (F&S) updated the Near Far Without a Car flyer (or CarFree Flyer) in August 2019. This flyer lists the alternative modes of transportation available at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It also consists of essential safety information, such as SafeRides, SafeWalks, DRES shuttles, Bicycle Safety Tips, Bike Registration, etc.

    F&S has partnered with several departments across the University to distribute the information in this flyer to thousands of old and new students. For example, this flyer will be distributed to more than 3,000 incoming international students during their mandatory check-in at the International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS). F&S has also partnered with MTD to...Expand »

    Attached Files: 
  5. MTD Newsletter for August 2017

    Welcome to MTD's Fall 2017 Service Year

    MTD’s 2017-18 service year began yesterday and new Maps & Schedules books are now available on our buses and at Illinois Terminal. Pick up yours today & let us know if you have any questions-just call 217.384.8188 or email us.

    In addition to a few timetable and routing adjustments, our passengers and the public should be aware of several larger changes this year: MTD has moved to a Designated Stops system, Round Barn Road in Champaign is now the main transfer point for routes in west Champaign, and MCORE project work will continue to cause reroutes in and around Campustown.
     
    School trips for Unit 4 and District 116 middle and high schoolers will begin this Wednesday, August 16, and just...Expand »

  6. November 4th, 2016 Meeting

    Meeting minutes 11/04/16

    -          Ankit showed us a video showing how some cities like Singapore are using tracking systems ( using cards) to track when people are getting on and getting off. This may improve the bus schedule. We could possibly using cards to track.

    o   MTD would have to put systems of the busses. Would require funds to implement this idea.

    o   Yangfeng mentioned some problems that could be associated with it. We must be careful if changing the bus schedule. Will MTD be open to the idea? It is quite some change.

    -          What we will talk to Ben about: one proposal on campus fleet, proposal on air travel to...Expand »

  7. Update from Ben McCall

    Dear Transportation SWATeam,  [Sorry for the barrage of emails...this is the last one for this morning!]

    I met with Michelle Wahl from Parking late last week, and she had some very useful comments on the iCAP draft that I thought I should share with you:

    1) She mentioned that in years past, she used to receive "idling reports" on her vehicles, which must have been equipped with some sort of system that tracked when the vehicles were idling.  This raised the question of whether such technology could be deployed widely on our fleet, rather than focusing only on "class 6 and above trucks" (neither of us knew exactly what that means).

    2) She was concerned about the financial aspects of providing additional opportunities for people to...Expand »

  8. MTD solar array article

    Associated Project(s): 

    "This summer, the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (CUMTD) maintenance facility got something cool to go on top of its roof — a big photovoltaic system — 1,212 panels.

    According to Jane Sullivan, whose title at CUMTD is grant manager and sustainability planner (and who is a 2012 graduate of the UI School of Earth, Society, and Environment, where I teach), it's the biggest solar array operating in central Illinois.

    It generates 350,000-kilowatt hours of electricity over the course of the year, which translates to one quarter of the electricity used there. (The maintenance facility is a busy place, operating 24/7 when the UI is in session and providing full service maintenance for the district's 102-bus fleet.)

    Sullivan said the...Expand »

  9. Transit analysis

    Associated Project(s): 

    In FY08, the UI funded a Transit Analysis for the University District by MAB.   The study reviewed options for Bus Rapid Tramsit lines and methods for reducing bus traffic on Wright Street.