 So, this morning, we have a public transportation electrification electrification plan, Ross McDonald's with us. And so, with a third of the new let's turn as Ross with us this morning. Good morning, Good morning, good morning. So it's all yours. Go right ahead. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And my name is Ross McDonald on the public transit program manager at V Trans, and I'm going to go ahead and share my screen by May. And you can just let me know when you see this, that would be great. Here we go. We see it. Okay. Well, great. So, last year, the T bill in section 35 included a provision for us to develop a electrification plan that plan has been called this the trans zero emissions transition plan. And it is a requirement with the new low and no emissions bus applications that we apply for each year. And as you can see here to the right, these are the memos or the chapters of the plan that is in draft form now due to be published at the end of this month. And this isn't the start of our electrification efforts I want to just point out that we have secured funding for 18 vehicles. We have five low and no emission grants from FTA as well as two buses from the VW settlement program. We only have two on the road at this point fiber being delivered this week with or within a few months, and six of our seven providers have embarked upon the electrification process with two to four or five vehicles to really start understanding what it takes to electrify our fleets. The goals were really broad brushed over the next 20, 30 years how could we fully electrify the fleet. What are the challenges, the benefits, the components for us to consider. Before this study we convened a technical advisory committee with members from Department of Public Service and our V trains environmental staff and our electric bus consultant VIC we each reviewed the chapters and contributed feedback throughout and concurrent to that my process my staff myself have been part of industry webinars conferences. To be sure the electrification process and industry is getting a lot of attention in the public transit space. What we're learning is that it's more complex than buying the vehicles and the chargers. We've also found enough positive aspects and potential to justify furthering these electrification efforts that are already underway. When we look at a nice national perspective, there's only 2700 vehicles that are zero emission buses and of that only 87 of those vehicles are hydrogen most are electric vehicles out on the road now. We're seeing 24% increases from one year to the next and expect that to increase with the robust funding that the low and no emissions bus program is going to have under the bipartisan infrastructure law. 3,000 transit buses 3.5% or zero emissions. If we look at our own fleet size of 420 425 vehicles. 18 vehicles that's just about 3.5%. That's a lot for a rural state. I think of Maine and New Hampshire, who only have who haven't procured any electric buses to date. 29% carbon emissions in the US are from transportation over 40% in this state. And that we are seeing a lot of advances in the battery technology that's allowing us to consider more. One of the great benefits and challenges as you see or what we can all understand easily and been thinking about one thing is these are quieter vehicles, less vibration, it's a rider amenity, and the ones that are on the road in Burlington are regularly receiving high praise from the riders. Now that we have a couple of operating. What's the range or hour or how do they operate I know they're going to get better as the years go on but presently the ones that we have where they go two hours or 50 miles or It depends on the vehicle size and the proteros that are on the road right now are about 170 miles operating for eight to 10 hours we're able to use those vehicles on over 80% of the current GMT routes without any operational issues. The issues have been with keeping them on the road due to electrical issues, not with the drivetrain but with the doors with the charging equipment with some of the maintenance items. But I'm happy to say that after some fits and starts those buses are up and running and around the road as much as the rest of the fleet. You're not going to have any mechanical or major mechanical issues. It's a whole new system right that just you're talking about batteries and as far as mechanical there's very little maintenance, I guess. Right and that's interesting to note that 75% of the bus is the same from electric to diesel but it's that drivetrain that the lube oil filters maintenance isn't going to be required the way it is now. The high cost of gas isn't part of the the equation. This plan doesn't look at operational pickups and efficiencies through the lifecycle of the bus. We're really looking at the capital replacement and investments to put the buses on the road. We do expect to see significant savings and maintenance with these buses once we get up and running. Can they go all day long on a route without getting recharged right now. Some of the larger buses can. When we look at the cutaways which make up 60% of our fleet in the state. They're only about 45 hours 100 miles or so and when we look at this plan will be seeing that each provider gave us roots and the amount of time that those buses need to stay on the road. So we're going to be looking at the current specs and which routes could accommodate an electric bus now, which would require better technology better operational specs that's coming up a little bit later in these in these slides, but we're going to need operational specifications and range but right now as you'll see we have over 80% of our roots that could be served right now with the larger buses and over 50% of the roots of right now could be served with our cutaways. That's a good question. Sure, go ahead jump right in. Yeah. Ross great to see you again. So I don't know if you know the answer to this one your previous slide you said it's about 2700 electric buses. My apologies in adoption right now you have any sense if we are an outlier in our colder climate are these being more predominantly or more common in the warmer areas I know when we originally got these we were worried about the really cold January February months as well as assault on the roads any any Yes, nice to see you to Senator. It's true that the overwhelming majority of these 2700 buses are in warm temperatures I think 35% of that 2700 are in California right now. So, one of the elements that we need to consider and we'll talk a little bit about meeting those auxiliary diesel heaters. The range is reduced when we're on those hilly terrains that that we're facing. Those are taken into account. And that's why these initial 18 buses are going to go a long way in informing our future plans, because nothing beats on the on the road. case studies in the specific areas and on specific routes that they need to be on. These buses need to be charged of course and we're expecting the courted plug in to the left as being the overwhelming majority for charging these vehicles. As you can see there's overhead conductive charging pantographs that those types of things by right ways and infrastructure costs and as we talked about these specs. We're thinking that maybe in the GMT urban area where you have buses sharing a lot of roots you have a downtown transit center. That could be an area to consider overhead conductive charging in root charging wireless inductive It's an interesting concept if you look at the cons down below. It's not offered as a standard option by any North American bus manufacturer. This is what we're seeing is that there's so much development and such a dynamic industry that as we look at a moment of time, it's due to change almost immediately upon publication. Ross, I have a question. I'm actually two slides back. And with reference to the hydrogen fuel cell buses. We've had kind of a flurry of email around hydrogen fuel as opposed to battery powered. What is the experience with the hydrogen fuel cell buses. And is there thinking about, is that an emerging technology. Are there advantages. I know that they're probably disadvantages well but what what does the experience tell us so far. Is that something that is under consideration. The hydrogen buses benefits are that they operate very similar to internal combustion engine or ice engine you'll see that acronym later. Some of the, you know, cons or challenges are that many times it takes a lot of energy to produce the hydrogen, and then you have to transport the hydrogen over the road. We have a visitor over the holidays who's working on a hydrogen projects in New Jersey where they're, they're, they're hoping to plug into pipelines from Texas and use offshore wind to produce clean hydrogen, having shared sites for New Jersey transit and those types of scale in Vermont we lacked that infrastructure to readily switch over to hydrogen. And that we in the recommendations are asked to consider concurrent to our electrification efforts, but at this point, we're not gaining a lot of traction we're seeing a viable way forward in just public transit vehicles for hydrogen it would take a much larger scale of shared depots and services, but it's not. It's not something we're not familiar with, but it is something that we haven't been able to really envision in this, in this state right now. Sure. So here we are, we have 123 roots they they mentioned GTFS that general transit feed specifications, which are used to identify the length and the time schedules and the like GMT has 60 of those 123 roots, they have about 50% of our ridership 50% of our vehicles, it's a pretty easy way to to look at the state is GMT is about half and then we have our six other providers throughout our more rural areas. We also have 700,000 additional trips that are made through our demand response services, which are, you know, in addition to these 123 roots. And when we talk about the providers really the reach out their outreach to them was just trying to figure out where these providers are in terms of support for these electrification plans and efforts and overwhelmingly, they get it they understand the value the, the better operational pickups, and certainly we know that diesel buses need about 15 people plus on them to to mitigate the pollution from that diesel compared to if everybody drove their own vehicles and so if we electrify then we know that we're part of, you know, our greenhouse gas reduction profile. And we also looked at all of these energy considerations that they have electrification plans, where they have for charging opportunities their configurations on site solar and the like. Those are just really trying to get statewide infrastructure and capacity perspectives and I've got a lot of slides here so I'm going to move through a little bit, but charging is a big component and just to mention that we do have space for most of our facilities to accommodate the charging infrastructure. We know that many of these facilities would would have to prepare for a much larger electrification electric bill and electric capacity at their facilities. Five of the seven facilities would require fit ups in partnership with utility to be able to deal with that nightly load. In the off peak times we know that's critical. As I attend conferences and webinars, one of the largest challenges has been the need to charge during peak hours whether it's due to maintenance because of a different charging issues throughout the night. And when that happens, the cost benefit analysis suffers greatly. And so, you know, how do we work with these utilities and continue to expand the programs that we have in place we have folks incentives to the provider, we have technical assistance we have some infrastructure assistance on other low and no projects that are already underway and VIC has been really wonderful in helping us negotiate and coordinate those types of efforts between the public transit provider and the regional or their local utility. Root and block analysis is what I was talking about earlier Senator Mazza when we wanted to see what would it take and how many routes currently could accommodate an electric bus and switch out one diesel bus for one electric bus. And a block is just not only the route but the dead head miles going to and from the station being down in between certain runs, those types of nuances. And the understanding was that we know that battery electric vehicles have a shorter operating range than diesel and gas powered vehicles that rural areas tend to use the smaller cutaway vehicles, we'll talk a little bit about that. And the assumptions that we would be using auxiliary diesel heaters during the wintertime months that we would use overnight depot charging, and that the vehicle sizes and battery capacities and kilowatt use per mile. Those are current today standards and and profiles. I get to see a bus in Chittany County that has over three or four passengers, they have to use big buses or can use smaller buses. I mean I always, every time I see buses in Chittany County there's always, you know, three, four people on it and could they use a smaller bus or is that not possible to do. It is possible and that's why 60% of our vehicles are those smaller cutaways and we are actually purchasing more vans for some of the demand response services because you can see one or two people on those Medicaid and elderly in persons with disability trips. One of the things is if we, if we buy a Gillig bus for 12 years that has capacity for 30 people that can be used for peak commute times it can be used for the, you know, for the link trips, they can, they really. It's no problem having a few fewer people on the vehicle than seats. It's a real problem having more people than seats on the bus being on US2 commuter for so many years. When we would get on that cutaway and there was four people standing for, you know, 30 minutes that wasn't helping ridership and it just kind of, you know, is the other issue to look at. And so we kind of buy the buses so that they would be able to perform for peak service and peak ridership, but we do try to right size as best we can. The other item there is these cutaways are five year vehicles and not 12 year vehicles. And that, you know, there are some, some comfort issues with the larger vehicles but right now, given the current routes that we are serving, 86% of those current routes could be operated using a single electric bus on a single overnight charge. Those are the larger buses we're talking about they've got the larger range and the industry is more serious. So how about, is there such a thing as solar energy on the roof of the buses is that solar panels I should say, is that yeah, we haven't seen that as much as solar panels, powering an onsite battery or what they called distributive energy resource. So if there's an onsite or offsite solar that was powering a battery during the day, then we could charge batter vehicles during the day, because it would be outside of the utility peak hour it would be stored energy onsite that's where we've seen solar being incorporated, but again, just a larger more complex piece of the puzzle, as you try to keep electrons in these vehicles. Given the cutaways, 54% of our roots have that the range and the abilities for an electric cutaway to serve the route so right now we know that we could buy a lot of buses and put them on the road at a one to one ratio. But there's a lot of nuances there, more urban blocks and rural blocks can be served by these fewer miles, less miles per hour. Those types of things in the transit buses have larger batteries and cut and those types of considerations. So the IT considerations is really just managing the charge and the approach. If we look at managing the energy use if you can see to the right, we can plug everything in at the same time and really create load strains, or we can use these charging approaches to smooth that out and that could be an advantage as we negotiate utility rates with our providers there. The IT considerations is just another big part of this electric component which is there are many IT and technological data that come through bus performance, maintenance capacity, the charging. We get a lot of data which should allow us to better manage some of the operations around these buses. We understand that training of the EV operators, we know that they require, you know, a different mindset and we need to use regenerative braking we can't do quick stop starts and stops that training is provided through most of our contracts no question. And yes, that is Lindsey Graham in the Pro Terra bus factory in his region. The maintenance as well. I hope he has a CDL. I don't know if that's moving but yeah. The battery electric buses and the internal combustion engines are around 75% same. But you do need to maintain these we need electricians and our maintenance staff to have electrical training for these vehicles. And of course we need to manage the extended warranties look at the lease options. Here's the big thing what's it going to cost and how long will it take for us to get to these types of electric full electrification and we need to start somewhere in terms of scenarios. So one of the scenarios was let's just purchase as many electric vehicles as we can. When they reached the end of their useful life that's how we generally turn over the fleet now when they reach the years and the miles for their for maintenance costs start skyrocketing we will, and then replace that vehicle. Mario two was a little different. And that we wanted to just kind of see what would it take to be 10% of our statewide fleet to be electric by 2025. If 50% of Green Mountains fleet was electrified that's about 25% of our entire fleet on that could be electrified by 2026. What would it take looking at that 2050 goal in the comprehensive energy plan to be 100% electric. Those assumptions included a constant fleet size vehicle useful life costs, costs, how costs decrease over time, all of those things we know are going to change. And so this is a snapshot in time using these pretty in inflexible variables, but what we're seeing is that we're looking at you know purchasing, and it depends on 30 buses or 20 buses depending on large and small mix depending on what our providers need. And also, they're assuming that depot charges are installed when a bus is purchased. We know that, or we expect that chargers will have a larger and a longer useful life than the vehicles. So over time that level of investment for the charging piece should should wane. I've got these these graphs to the right. I probably had a look at those five or six times to even understand them to an extent the big piece there is there's a straight light blue line of just under $20 million per year, which is the average spending scenarios to is just over $60 million. And it's a little bit easier to discuss in the next slide here. The existing fleet between now and 2050 will cost about 275 million to replace all the diesel buses with diesel buses. Scenario one is to ramp up pretty quickly and spend another $287 million over the next 28 years to electrify and scenario to allows for more ice vehicles to be purchased concurrent and still reaching that that 2050 goal, but it's about 205 extra million dollars over the next 28 years. But what's going to happen to the more electricity we use isn't the power company is going to have to charge more for electricity and when there's more demand for electricity is going to grow that big. How does that go to work because certainly Green Mountain Power or any of the large companies, they got to produce more power, because the demand is going to be there so how is that going to work out. I don't know, Senator and you know as we electrify our personal cars and our heating systems and our transit buses this is something that is discussed quite a bit, which is how high can the utilities go in terms of producing all of those electrons on demand and as needed. That's why I think in, in the transit field, we can do a couple things that manage charging could allow us to smooth out the, the demand at these facilities, we could have distributed energy resources where we have on site storage that allow for, you know, more smooth throughout 24 hour period. And then of course we can be part of the utilities emergency plans. If we are holding so much energy in our buses and in our on site batteries that are powered by solar. Could they bring in their own infrastructure and pull that energy during peak times when necessary. We may be part of the solution as well as part of the the increased demand. If we are able to throw the needle and and I negotiate the right contracts and programs with these utilities. And so, so I've been involved with some of those discussions about the questions that you just asked. And as of right now on their contingency plan is and it's, and you can, you can read it it's not it's not been out there very well there's been a couple stories that reported on it. But their contingency plan is the plan for rolling blackouts 10% rolling blackouts when when they don't have enough power and we're and we're close to that. We'll be close to that within three years they said it's going to take 30 years to build the infrastructure that we need to supply the power that they're asking for but as of right now the contingency plan is to have rolling blackouts to 10% of the of the grid and Vermont. And where where is that is that a report center Ingalls is yeah. Yeah, if the best report that you can get on that is that's a VP PSA. Yeah. And if you contact them. They'll, Linneville electric. If you contact Linneville electric and asking for that reports. Senator Kitchell, they'll have that and that and it's not just them it's it's all it's all green mountain powers involved with that brought an electric departments involved with that. All of the major power companies that that's the portfolio of what how they are going to deal with that as of right now. So they all have that report. Yes, great. I think what Senator Ingalls is talking about is an ISO report but that is, that's been the contingency plan for ever like that's all you do. That's not true, Senator that's not it's a new it's a new plan and plan is new but what I'm saying is that anytime that there was a constraint on power, rolling blackouts is what they do, and that would have been the same before or but they never had the, they never had the load on that Senator to ever even discuss that and even have it be a route reality where now we're getting to the point where the the plans that we're trying to put forth are greater than what the grid will be able to supply and they will not be able to build up fast enough and so it is starting to become a reality. I disagree with what you're saying I think we have different information if we want to get into the utility issues we can have the Department of Public Service and utilities in and they have been absolutely I have said it's not the truth you keep interrupting me Senator Ingalls. I understand what system of committee discussion you are operating on. I apologize. I think if we're going to save these statements, we should bring in the utility experts, I think what you're saying is not true. And it's not key to the transportation committee so I don't, I don't think we need to have them in but if we're going to make changes about transportation policy, then I think we do need to have them in because what they've said in the past is that the increase in the load is not of concern right now, and that it is something that we can handle. One of the issues for mine so is that the in the winter. When we're using natural gas for heating that there's constraints there and there are constraints I'm not saying there's no issues at all, but the to say that we're going to go to 10% you know rolling blackouts is something that is something very unlikely to happen on the margins and is not going to be because of our electrification points. But I'll do some approach like is I will, instead of calling in the anybody else, I'll get the report to the committee so that everybody will have that report, the same report that I've been involved with and the same discussions that I've been having, which differs from what I've been doing, and again, I'll just get the report and share it with everybody and then everybody can read it. Okay, we're in head Ross. Yeah, Senator. Yeah, I'd love to see all that information about, can I go into the scenario one and scenario to Ross. So I think these are important questions I think you're leading us towards maybe which path you're going to go go towards. Yeah, I think there are assumptions constant fleet size vehicle use for life's cost how cost degrees is it is there and also a big assumption here about availability of these electric buses over the 1020 your horizon looking at the supply chain and the increased demand across like his production going to meet the expected demand to Vermont as well as the other states to electrify. Yeah, that's a concern Senator. And if we are seeing 1215 month delivery times with the current demand below and no bus program is going to see a 10 times growth and it's in its funding levels. So there is a real concern about the demand outstripping industry capacity to provide those vehicles. We could see 12 to 24 month delivery times, and we could also see no responses to some RFPs. And if people are focused on the 3000 that Atlanta wants or whatever that looks like in Vermont. We'll see what that means low and no emission grants in the future will require a minimum, I believe it's eight or 10 vehicles per capacity and the industry sees this they're ramping up as best they can. So just a few years and you'll see this in the first recommendation, it speaks to the concern that we may be waiting for these vehicles longer than we would for a diesel bus. So this is really you know what does this mean, and, and I just asked a calm to get to give me the, the, the total cost for ice and for electric vehicles over the next, you know throughout this calculation or this this modeling. And over the next six years scenario one is looking for $149 million. And right now we spent about eight to $10 million a year on buses so let's say if we average $10 million with our normal budget. We don't need anywhere from 13 to $1516 million over the next six years to to meet either scenario one, or scenario two. When we look at scenario one and scenario two, over the long haul, there's an average of 16 and a half or 19 million but in the next three or four or five, six years there's not a big difference in cost, because of, you know, just ramping up to get to those, those goals that we talked about that what that would look like is, we have our current contracts, we go out to bid for low and vehicles at that 13 million or whatever the delta would be. And that would require, you know, additional dollars from the missing my notes here but it's about another 1.2 to $1.8 million in the state and local funds and that's not in our budget it's not something that I'm, I'm, you know, overseeing or controlling but those are the things that we'll be talking about through this agency with this committee, as we prepare for the low and no application, do we have the not the 15% match funds, and if we do to what extent to proceed with any of this plan. Just real quick, I know we're over time but we have another, we have another testimony coming up with my friend Dan, my staff member Dan Currier, and we can take care of that within the time that we have so we'll be wrapping up at 1015 regardless but we're here at the conclusion and recommendations and right away that first recommendation I didn't ask for recommendations I like I asked for recommendations they would give us and so I agree with some of these and and you know we're not really seeing some others but the situation is is going to be dire in terms of demand and supply. They're saying that the train should try to order as many electric vehicles as possible try to get in the line before more transit providers and they're in the US develop their electrification plans, again, you will not be able to submit an application for electric buses. Okay, zero emissions transition plan so we're ahead of the game a little bit, but will be constrained by by finances not demands at you know to begin this process and considerations. These are also advised to conduct a more in depth analysis of infrastructure and space needs at the facilities and we're going to get to, you know, next steps very quickly. But the train should explore the potential for conversion kits those weren't part of the funding and the financing piece, but there's an operations manager in GMT who has a lot of experience in electrification projects. And Connie Engler is their operations manager. She was wondering, you know why couldn't some of the mix be mid year conversions when they're I have a 12 year vehicle going through a six or seven year mid life. Overhaul, during that overhaul could they convert and use a kit to make it electric for far less than it would cost for a new electric bus. And she's also talking about in route charging with different partners and we really have a great partner at GMT, who's been part of this discussion for far longer than I, and it was in California working on their efforts. But because of the battery technology is improving, but right now the larger buses have the range V train should consider building out the electric bus fleet of Green Mountain transit the only urban agency in the state. As it works as it waits for smaller vehicles those cutaways to improve enough to serve longer routes. And I agree with that, because it's going to take a larger perspective and consideration to implement large scale electrification GMT in the urban area that's where you know our air is least clean. That's where the, the routes make the most sense and it's where they use the larger buses. That all makes a lot of sense. In addition to that we have GMT, who's looking to build a new facility in central area to get out of a flood plain and a fairly dilapidated facility that be trained still owns. We could take that take use this opportunity to build an electric, an electric shop in an electric facility. So instead of buying three gas tanks, we with those investments go to the electrification infrastructure. Well, I would like to write immediately work with GMT to get them the funding to conduct a specific implementation plan for GMT urban and rural services. And, relatedly, we are seeing that the cutaways are being tested through the FTA Altoona testing requirement, and that yes the sales people are telling us they're doing great. We'll see about the final reports, but we are confident we'll have better ranges and specs soon. Be trans, they talk about auxiliary diesel heaters we understand that the need for that at this point. And then, again, they're saying hey don't forget about hydrogen or wireless inductive charging even though I was fairly dismissive through our discussions I want to really focus on the plug ins of the electric. There may be a way forward using a lot of different partners on hydrogen. And there may be some areas where conductive charging is it makes sense. And so that's really they start talking about well you could use two electric buses instead of one diesel bus. That's not something that I think we need to consider for many, many years down the road, as we work to switch out those one for one buses. And, and so, wrapping up, they just have a couple other things they want to keep mind of as we proceed, which is use those telematics that's been very helpful in the case studies. Explore charge management systems and plug and play turn key charging programs as charging as a service. Work with those manufacturers and continue to get the training we need as we bring on different models right now we have gilligan pro terrace and that goes coming in there's a company in outside of Montreal that's trying to entice us with the Latendra vehicles that look great. And again Connie wants to learn more. And we've already been leveraging federal funds we're very successful in our low and no emissions grants, because the IC is really bringing together the utility and we've got a way forward on that. And the next steps. This is the next step is to share the initial information and publish the report at the end of this month. I want to do with the administration thanks the agency. Prepare for the upcoming low and no emissions bus and bus facilities grant program to whatever extent I'm allowed provide funding for GMT's fleet transition plan, like to get going on that in the next few weeks. All of these procurements with our those 18 electric buses are having weekly or bi weekly or bi monthly calls. We want to make some of those a quarterly event so that we can all see what all of these procurements are revealing in terms of challenges that we're going through dates, charging those types of things that will be that that will be done in the starting, probably in January February that will be up to some of some of the staff. And then we want to begin implementation with the understanding of the associated challenges benefits and knowing that this dynamic industry will change will need to update this plan every every few years if not every five years. And that's the first presentation I have for you this morning. Justice, when do you think it's going to be I know there's three fairs, you think it's ever going to change there'll be some fairs in the future because I don't know how you can do it for no fairs at all. Yeah, and this is our next, this is our next piece right and and presentation if I may I'll just go right into it, Senator. Okay, whatever. Okay, thank you. Um, so yeah so your concern is is our concern. And there's really, you know, a bifurcation of affairs, we have the 5311 profile, those non urban roots. We generate about $575,000 and non federal revenues. Those dollars come off the top of a roots of root costs $100,000 and we get 10,000 and fares that route then becomes $90,000 and then we apply 5050 or 8020 splits on on the components of those roots admin or operations. The overall roots were already zero fair before we went completely zero fair because support from Dartmouth Hitchcock or some of the mountains or some folks like RCT or GMC and we're charging 50 cents and finding that it was costing about as much or costing a big percentage just to handle the overheads associated with the fair boxes and handling that cash on a daily basis. That's the percent fair box recovery. That's the percent of operating budget on most of these roots that do have fares. The 5307 urban area is totally different. They have a more robust service. They charge fares on on all of their roots now that they've gotten out of except for the mountain road shuttle, which is supported by stove. They have a more robust system more service more riders more coverage, and they have a more of a 20 to 25% fair box recovery for the Ross. Yes, I want to go back to the last side. On the rural. I believe every town and at least in Colorado. I think an RCTs district actually rather than a fair box. They, they have towns appropriate money for the residents to use the service. So does your fair box recovery reflect those municipal appropriations that are done on behalf of their residents for this services that they are provided. It does not what that is that's reflected in the local funds component of our budgets at the provider level the budgets will show federal state and local funds. And about because that's one of the, you know, reasons that towns are giving appropriations is it doesn't mean individual people have to, you know, make the payment it's just done as a service to town residents so. All right, you've answered my question then that those collective payments on behalf of residents of riders in a particular town are not reflected. This is just fair box money. Okay, that's correct. And as a resident each and we pay a certain amount of monies and we expect that the elderly and disabled and the Medicaid services, you know, are part of the transportation services that you have and teach them. And many, many towns do provide certain funds and assistance to the local trans provider, and that's to match capital to match operations to match admin. And then does that allow them to be fair free. You know, and half the instances yes, that is the case in the rural areas. When we, we looked at fair free policies when we were looking at methods to increase the use of public transit in Vermont, we stated that there would be an increase in ridership with with zero fares. And that would be mostly with more trips by existing riders there are hesitations or implications to low income people to to spend a few dollars to get to and from where they want to go. The system would be certainly easier to use we wouldn't be buying fair boxes we wouldn't be handling the cash we wouldn't need security cameras and rooms and those types of things. The associated overheads and 1030 I believe we're, I'll be participating in the CCR PCs transit financing study that does discuss the fair, the fair loss of revenues. And right now, with the loss of ridership, you have a loss of potential revenues and if we're at 47% of pre COVID revenues that $575,000 received would be 270,000. $1.2 million could could be less than 1.5 million. But that's still a lot of money that supports a lot of roots and efforts, primarily in our rural in our urban system. The 5311 rural program has COVID relief funds to help us maintain zero fares throughout FY 23 so the FY 23 budget does call for a continuation of fair free service. We'll continue review budgets and consider extending zero fares on an annual basis that's the that's the rural side that's the part that I'm part of in a very big way, the 5307 urban program is is managed through their board of commissioners, and they are an authority. So if you're considering fairs in FY 23, John Moore will be part of that 1030 discussion and can provide updates and details. But the board of commissioners are really, you know, struggling to figure out, you know, is it worth to be fair free and if not, how would you generate those funds, otherwise, to cover those gaps. That's, that's where we are with fairs I don't know if sustainability wise we spend pre COVID. $8 million in state funds. Could we make it 7.5 in state funds and that $500,000 being used to cover fairs and in future years. I don't know yet there's so many moving parts we have the new infrastructure bill that, you know, will change a lot of our appropriations and funding. But we are confident that we can maintain fair, fair, zero fairs through FY 23. And that's where we are for that one. And if anybody has questions on fairs, let's let's do that now and then I'll, I'll turn it over and kind of drive the slides for staff member Dan Courier. Thank you. Sure, thank you. Okay, Dan, are you with us. Hi, I'm Ross thanks and for having me here this morning. So I'll take over and doing some of the talking so Ross can take a break. So I'm here to present on the V Trans intermodal connectivity study, which was a statewide review of the ferry train and bus connections in Vermont and we worked with a consultant actually a calm that Ross was just referencing and electrification plan. So it's a legislative study to through the, the house trans through the transportation bill to conduct the intermodal connection review. And we did work with our public transit the rail and other service providers across Vermont for the information and review that you'll see today. Next slide. And so what we have here on the right is a map of the services that were looked at. We've got, you know, the inner intermodal connections with our rail, which is the Amtrak, the inner city buses, which is the greyhound and the Vermont We also have all the transit agencies and their schedules that were part of the review and then we had 28 stations that were looked at in Vermont and those 28 of those 24 were actually assessed in much detail. In total we did it went through four steps Ross you're going a little fast with this. Can you back up please. Thanks. In total, we looked at four components for the research, including past reports, and in seven total reports were looked at including the rail and inner city freight plans, and the transit policy plan. We conducted surveys and interviews, and then we looked at over 890 schedules in Vermont trying to figure out their connections. And then we conducted those 24 site assessments. Next slide. From our stakeholder engagement we're really discovered that the largest improvement that was out there was in the rail and our service improvements, and that was across the board but many people shared. One of the things that we found out was that if you had strong jobs you also needed strong inner modal and commuter rail and commuter bus services. And so the demand was high for those where you had strong and high job concentrations. We also found out that Albany really is a strong destination, and we reformatted our inner city bus, the Vermont Transline bus to help serve that location actually twice a day. Amtrak is still proving to cause some, you know, rider concerns and low confidence, you know, that Amtrak coming in not on time that on time performance is low and so that's still creating some heartache for the riders and the users there. But we can improve the system with better connections, better communication between the operators. And so it's something, you know, to be worked on into the future when we start to do the implementation of this. And then, obviously, knowledge is key right and unfortunately we still have low knowledge on some of our connections in Vermont. Next slide. When we looked at the schedules what we found was that, you know, and when we looked at the schedules really were focused on wait time you know how long would it take to make a connection, you know to another mode, you know whether it's inner city bus, rail, commuter bus or local connections and so on average what we found that during the weekday someone trying to make a connection would have to wait about 81 minutes on average across Vermont, and on the weekends, you had about an hour on Saturday and just over an hour on Sunday. And so, you know, what we're finding is that basically 37% of the locations had no service on Saturday and 62% had no service on Sunday. And then of the 890 intermodal schedules that we looked at 231 which is about that 26% didn't have any connection at all. Right, so basically, you would end up at a location and there was no connection to other modes right there was connection inside the network for another local route, but they didn't make a connection to another mode or another inner city connection. And some of the reasons for this really are, you know what you have is commuter buses that really are focused on transporting employees to employment centers, and that's really their main focus they're not looking to connect intermodally. You also have, you know, the Vermont Amtrakr that basically their northbound train, as well as the Vermont Translines PM route, they are just running too late, many, many local services are ending between seven and 8pm and those trains and those buses are all, you know, arriving way after that time. And then, you know where you've got intermodal connections, you know, they're, you know, they rarely, you know, have the same bus, as well as the same rail serving the same location and so there's just no way to connect those two services together. Next slide, Ross. The station that we looked at and that's 24 in total has one of these detailed site assessments conducted for it. And really this is a great roadmap for the agency as well as the operators to kind of look at station by station. What modes are there, how many connections do we have, what are the amenities at the stations, how do we, you know, what are, you know, those other commuter and bus services there. And then it also talks about the wait times, what would it take to do that intermodal connection. And then we really have the list at the bottom of these of all of the concerns and opportunities that were discovered for improvements at the stations. And it's those improvements that really developed the list of recommendations that we have at each station as well as the overarching recommendations. Next slide, Ross. The recommendations are broken out into overarching recommendations and those are statewide or regional wide, where we look at, you know, what happens, you know, for signage or what happens when you have schedules. And then you have station by station recommendations they're looking at the capital that's those infrastructure pieces, whether it's benches or, you know, new waiting areas, and then service, you know, improvements that recommendations that we identify, whether it's you know, lengthening the debt operating day, or even adding new routes that would go into that location. Next slide, Ross. And so, all of those 29 recommendations were then prioritized. And the prioritization really looked at, what was the impact, you know, of that improvement to the system and improving the connection, you know, to other intermodal roots. And how complex was that recommendation to actually, you know, implement, you know, is it something as easy as a sign or something as complicated as building and planning new bus routes. And then what is the cost, you know, is it a small cost or is it a large cost. All of that together comes up and develops our prioritization. So the prioritization we then divided the recommendations into two pots, we have got a short term group of recommendations and a long term group of recommendations. And those short term recommendations really, you know, are things that can occur in a year or less, you know, it's something that should be very easy, like putting up new signage where existing signage is. Short term recommendations were then further divided into low, medium and high priorities. And that was based on the prioritization that we used above. Ross, next slide. And so, the next four slides are all the recommendations, all those 29 recommendations broken out into their two groups we have the short term recommendations first, there was nine recommendations in total that fall into the short term recommendations and table has the description of the recommendation, those categories that it fell into that type category so again that's the station capital the station service or the overarching recommendation for the statewide level. And then how many stops did this particular recommendation apply to. Some examples as you see here, you know, as I talked before, some of the short term recommendations are like replace the existing signs or actually put up signs, you know, where there is none. And then you've got, you know, information like, you know, oh, can we improve the communication about the transit app in Vermont, which is a real time bus tracking application that any writer can use to understand where the buses are, and how soon they'll be arriving. Next slide, Ross. For the long term recommendations, again, we have high, medium and low priority. In the high priority, there were four recommendations that fell into this category, including putting signage where there was no signage and a lot of this is, you know, where, you know, we have to work with the local communities or, you know, with the actual operators to put in new signs where signs had never existed before. You know, and then we're talking about improving connections to on the weekdays in the weekends. Next slide. And then for the medium priority long term recommendations. You know, this is a lot of capital and a lot of service, right, where we can put in new seating or in, you know, improve waiting area infrastructure, where we can, you know, reduce the redundancy in our schedules, or even add new midday service or weekend service to a location. And then we've got the low priority ones and these are the ones that are going to cost the most are the most difficult to implement. Right. You know, they certainly are something to plan for, but we should just need to recognize that these are going to be more difficult than the others and a lot of these are like, you know, some some really cool amenities like installing real time arrival information at our, you know, major station locations, right. You know, you know, expanding the Amtrak intercity station hours right right now those station hours they're only operated about 15 minutes a day 15 minutes before the train and 15 minutes after the train right what would it look like to have those stations staffed for four hours eight hours or whatever. And then really, you know, offer a coordinated passenger and ticketing system across from us so if you got on the Amtrak you could then transfer to Greyhound you can then transfer to your local bus service, all with the same pass. That doesn't exist today. Right, but it's a future thing that we, you know, certainly to look to and it's something that's technology that V trans is certainly interested in doing, you know, we've done leaps and bounds, you know, with a lot of our technical models, we've done some following. Next slide. And this is really the next step for this report, you know, and so the report is drafted. It's been shared with operators regional planning commissions internally and V trans all trying to get a review. Welcome to share it with this committee, if you'd like to see it as well. And really what we're looking for is to review those, you know, and really to come up with the final prioritization. With the operators and taking those 24 stations and those, you know, overarching recommendations and trying to look at them, you know, and in the next year and that's fiscal year 23. What can we implement. Right. What's the timeline for those and then start planning for the long term recommendations, you know, because those many of those will take two three years to implement. And so if not further and so really just try to put this through an implementation process and take those 20 recommendations and try to really do what's in the nature, you know, of the legislative directive, you know, to help improve the connectivity of those intermodal connections. And that's my presentation. Any questions. I'm going to assume you recognize me. Good to see you Dan. Great presentation. I couple of comments. You mentioned system knowledge is low and I love that you recognize that, especially when it comes to rail and connecting to a public transit busing and so on. I got to say until I became a senator I didn't know that there was a train that left St. Albans and went all the way down to Washington DC every single day except when it was off the line for the pandemic. I'm really excited about the new train service that's going to be out of Burlington straight through Rutland all the way down. Can you speak more about how we are more broadly expanding awareness of train service to get to the major cities here in Vermont. And in that same vein, I'd love for you. I don't mean to be provincial and my advocacy here but I'm really excited about the Essex connector, and how that can really change the Essex junction facility. I'm hoping that there's some intermodal planning to make sure GMT is going to serve and have the right routes to serve to make sure that when those trains come into Essex junction that they can get down to the Burlington train station or the Burlington International Airport, so that there's a lot of cohesion across air train and busing as that Essex connector comes online to expand and improve a train service to Essex junction. How would you promote more broadly the experience. I mean, absolutely, you know, you know, I'll, I'll put them I go Vermont, I'm also the government manager in that program, you know, I basically try to promote all modes in Vermont public transit rail. You know, and that is one means to, you know, highlight these connections. And so we already have an existing site for that, you know, highlight the Amtrak service and so that is one means that will certainly include that Ethan Allen, you know, expansion out of Burlington. And so, but the, you know, the rail section, you know, is a great partner with us and and I'll have to, you know, reach out to them and find out what their plans are. I don't know, you know, what their direction will be. You know, they'll work with Amtrak closely, you know, on engagement. And I know GMT, you know, the, the station assessments did not include that new route, nor did include the new service, you know, that will be there for the rail so that's going to be something to update in these stations with GMT. Once that new service comes online. And so, yeah. Yes, Jane. I just wanted to ask one of the issues that becomes or challenges is parking. Whether we're talking about where you pick up the bus. You see this all the time at Dartmouth coach originally it was free parking and there was plenty of parking and now, even with the bigger lot now they're changing. On the other hand, the state of New Hampshire has free parking in Concord, for example, and in, I believe, Salem or Rockingham as they head into Boston. And it seems like the adequacy we're seeing the need for parking and adequacy of parking as a real issue and I'm just wondering, as we're looking at trying to make connections to work better and we're hoping to get greater take up of our rail system, which seems so promising. What are you thinking about in terms of addressing the parking need, because people have got either got to have somebody take them to get on that first leg of public transit, or they've got to park somewhere and we're seeing that. And even in New Hampshire see a parking for their trail heads, and we're seeing it for the Mall Valley Rail Trail. So, I just wondered how that is being a factored in and long term planning. I'll mention one small thing that the report yielded and then Ross if you have any thoughts as well but one thing that we're really talked about was this idea of wayfinding and trying to put up, you know, additional information not only for the people that get off the train but for the people trying to get to the train really understand where they're the train station is how do you get there you know on the roads but the parking locations for sure in the community that you're trying to get to, you know we've got, you know some certainly, you know in the downtown's parking is out of commodity right, but we've got lots of parking rides in Vermont, and those parking rides are mostly served by the transit routes. I would have to think that we could build, you know, those connections where we go from where we've got good parking available and adjacent to, you know, our interstates and our intermodal connections. And then generate the wayfinding that's needed for someone to then successfully navigate those trips, park their car safely and for zero or no, you know for a lower no cost for the day or for the week and then go to the train station or he'll hop on the bus that would then bring them to the train station so people really talking about bringing together, you know, a bunch of the network that exists in Vermont already to try to, you know, address them that parking concerns. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Maybe Ross, it is. You mentioned the delays that the Vermonter has been experiencing. And do you have a something to say about why the delays are, are what they are, do you know what's causing personally don't and I did not. All I know is that it comes in later or the schedules unpredictable so that on time performance, you know, so say you read the schedule and it's going to come in at eight. Right, and it comes in late, you know, most more times than not is what I've been told but Ross, what would have you around been around longer. Thanks so much Dan, and just for everybody's knowledge Dan is the government program manager or it person or data person and a public transit coordinator and just so fortunate to have him but for us. We would have to look at the rail on time performance. I know that we received a lot of this data as anecdotal through surveys, and there could be a perception that the trains not on time but in many instances, we should defer to the rail section to talk about, you know, their services. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question either to back up a little bit to center chin in comments. Everyone in Vermont in the trains is aware of the new services coming online GMT not least of whom are part of the planning process and there's corridor studies that I've been invited to that include GMT will continue to work with them and speak to adjustments necessary because of new built environments new services, new, you know, intermodal connections coming online will will stand up to ready to, to augment or compliment those those new services best we can. Any questions any further questions. If I may just follow up on that point Senator most are great. So does the state have we historically or do other states play a promotional role for rail service in the state is that something that we do do because I've never seen an advertisement. But maybe I'm just not in the right media channels that we have a Vermont or and I took it this summer it was great it was a great experience it was really cheap that I got to say the coffee was not good but other than that, the training was a great experience. And when I was telling my friends about taking train down to Philadelphia the same training out of St. Albans, they had no idea about it so what do we do and what have we done is this something we're looking at doing lining up with the new train service out of Burlington. Sure, Amtrak works with our rail program and the chief marketing officer over at a CCD to coordinate. You know their outreach program. Dan as government program manager is responsible to to help promote all modes we focused on carpools and vehicles and transit mostly in the past. But with these rail changes and the evolution of rail services, we can compliment those efforts and become part of that service I've seen advertisements for Amtrak and magazines and a couple banner ads but yeah if we can do a better job, we spend maybe $60 to $80,000 in media buys every year, the next couple years a portion of that will go toward promoting the Amtrak service. Certainly, concurrent to that we need to use those station assessments with each of our providers and really get working on a one to five year plan of how we can better incorporate these intermodal connections and that's that's where we are today. We have a really great document to get started with for every one of these stations and and we hope that those applications for FY23 will address some of those low hanging fruit and work with the RPCs to to get started on on some of those larger projects that would take a few years to get done and finance. We had a really good overview this morning we and maybe we'll have you back at some time but it's very informative and I appreciate it. Any other questions before we take our break. Well thank you again, and we'll see you in a little while here I guess again. Thank you. Thank you very much.