UNH Poised to Have One of Cleanest Transit Systems in New England
 
By Dana Prifti, Media Relations Writing Intern

As a trailblazer in the fields of alternative fuel and alternative transportation, the University of New Hampshire is once again implementing cleaner technology in the campus transit system to reduce emissions and save energy, a move that could create one of the cleanest university transit systems in New England by 2007.

“In 18 months, I think UNH will have one of the cleanest small transit systems in New England,” said Steve Pesci, special projects director for Campus Planning and Transportation Services. “It involves many pieces of a puzzle that, when put together, will demonstrate that we can improve service, save energy, and reduce emissions.”

One piece of that puzzle includes the proposed use of biodiesel developed, in part, from waste vegetable oil collected from UNH’s dining halls. As a member of the Granite State Clean Cities Coalition, Pesci said UNH looks at the issues of energy reduction and their relation to reducing emissions that negatively affect air quality.

According to standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the seacoast portion of New Hampshire is in an ozone non-attainment zone, which means that the air quality does not meet standards for ground-level ozone in the summer. In order to reduce ground-level ozone, UNH has received several grants that will be used to replace transit and non-transit vehicles with cleaner models, as well as improve existing infrastructure to better equip UNH to save energy and reduce emissions.

In 2005, with funding assistance from the U.S. Department of Transportation, UNH purchased six campus transit buses totaling $360,000 that run on compressed natural gas (CNG) instead of petroleum-based fuel. They replaced five “dirty diesel” buses, thus reducing emissions, improving air quality and cutting down on noise pollution, according to Dirk Timmons, director of transportation services.

“By switching to those vehicles we have a cleaner fleet. The benefit is we were able to take advantage of approximately 80 percent federal funding to pay for those vehicles,” Pesci said. “That’s a big help to UNH and to the students because the students are contributing a lot to the transit system. For every 20 cents, we get a dollar’s worth of vehicle.”

In the next 18 months, UNH will replace $2.5 million in transit vehicles and $181,000 in non-transit vehicles. The $181,000 will be used to purchase either five pick-up trucks to be used for everything from snowplowing to parking services, or a five-ton and a one-ton dump truck - some of the heaviest emitting vehicles on campus. “To get these heavy duty vehicles replaced would cut down on emissions so much,” Pesci said.

UNH also is pursuing the use of biodiesel fuel instead of petroleum-based fuel. Biodiesel fuel is created from non-petroleum-based sources such as plant material, soy beans, waste vegetable oil, and mustard seed to name a few. UNH is collecting vegetable oil from the dining halls on campus and processing into a component of bio-diesel.

In 2006, with the assistance of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, UNH will begin to phase in the use of a B20 biodiesel fuel, meaning it is 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent standard diesel. Pesci hopes that as demand grows, lower sulphur biofuel is more readily available for overall fleet use. This fall, Pesci and Timmons hope to move forward with converting one of the unleaded fuel tanks at the state fueling center at West Edge into a B20 tank.

Pesci outlined a “dual track approach” that has UNH aggressively pursuing biodiesel “to create a market for the fuel and to demonstrate that it works in a cold climate while also pursuing other alternative fuels like compressed natural gas and electrics,” he said. “The ideal is we pursue these dual tracks, and for each vehicle that comes along, we do an evaluation of the best fuel source for each vehicle. As equipment costs decline we also hope to consider hybrids of those technologies ”

Pesci and Timmons noted a change in critical needs over the past five years in terms of transportation services from parking to transit capacity – a good problem to have, they both agree.

“Right now, just for June, July, August, September, we’ve seen a 35 percent increase over the previous year,” Timmons said. “The problem that we’re running into is having enough equipment and overflow on the buses. Since we’ve started school, we’ve had to put an extra bus on every weekend run to Portsmouth. So instead of 40 passengers, we’re going anywhere from 60 to 80.”

The train and bus stations have seen the same rise in ridership. Train ridership has gone up approximately 300 percent in the past two years, according to Pesci. There are approximately 5,000 trips a month out of the Durham train station during academic months.

With this change in the transportation needs of students, UNH is working hard to be a leader in providing energy efficient, clean transportation options. Pesci and Timmons are confident that these new developments will further UNH’s progress.