Syed Faizullah
A multidisciplinary team led by Prof. Yiqiao Li of the City College of New York’s Department of Civil Engineering has been selected by the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice (MOCEJ) and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to develop a Citywide School Bus Electrification Resilience Plan.
The approximately five-month, $400,000 project is being conducted through the NYC Town+Gown program, with WXY architecture + urban design participating as a $100,000 subcontractor to provide specialized expertise in planning, zoning, land use, regulatory considerations, and charging-site development.
Supporting New York City’s Transition to Electric School Buses
The project will support New York City’s transition of its 10,000-plus vendor-operated school buses to zero-emission vehicles by 2035. While replacing conventional buses with electric vehicles is a critical part of this transition, reliable electrification requires much more than vehicle deployment.
The research will address the infrastructure and operational challenges associated with electric school bus adoption, including:
- Determining where and when school buses can charge
- Assessing electrical-grid capacity and infrastructure requirements
- Identifying routes suitable for electric school bus operation
- Planning for extreme weather, flooding, and power disruptions
- Identifying opportunities for off-depot charging
- Evaluating operational and economic considerations
- Developing practical implementation strategies for the City and school bus vendors
The team will integrate data from NYC Public Schools (NYCPS), MOCEJ, Con Edison, and other City sources, including school bus routes, depots, route-to-depot assignments, park-out locations, charging requirements, climate-risk information, and electrical infrastructure.
Using these data, researchers will estimate depot charging demand under different levels of fleet electrification through 2035, quantify midday and overnight off-depot charging needs, and evaluate which routes can be operated by electric school buses under varying operating and charging conditions.
Building Resilience Into School Bus Electrification
A key focus of the project is ensuring that electrification can support reliable school transportation during disruptions. The analysis will examine how flooding, extreme heat and cold, grid outages, route disruptions, and partial loss of depot or charging capacity could affect school bus operations and service continuity.
The project will also identify and evaluate off-depot charging opportunities throughout the city. Candidate locations will be assessed from transportation, electrical engineering, economic, regulatory, land-use, climate-resilience, and environmental-justice perspectives.
The team will conduct engineering analyses for selected locations, develop planning-level cost estimates, identify at least 10 priority charging areas, and advance four to five promising pilot sites to preliminary utility service-request documentation. These packages will include charging loads, conceptual electrical configurations, site plans, operational requirements, and implementation considerations to support future coordination with Con Edison and City agencies.
Multidisciplinary CCNY Research Team
The project brings together faculty expertise from CCNY Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering.
Prof. Yiqiao Li, Lead Principal Investigator, will oversee project integration and lead transportation data analysis, fleet and route resilience analysis, economic and operational assessment, route-electrification guidance, and development of the final citywide plan.
Prof. Mahdieh Allahviranloo will contribute expertise in routing, fleet optimization, scheduling, and large-scale transportation systems.
Prof. Naresh Devineni will lead climate-hazard and resilience analysis, while Prof. Ahmed Mohamed will lead the electrical engineering components, including charging infrastructure, grid integration, distributed energy resources, energy storage, microgrids, and vehicle-to-grid technologies.
The project also includes WXY architecture + urban design, represented by Bahij Chancey and Adam Lubinsky, contributing expertise in New York City zoning, land use, curb management, school siting, regulatory analysis, and implementation planning.
A Roadmap for Resilient Electric School Bus Infrastructure
The final deliverable will be an implementation-oriented Citywide School Bus Electrification Resilience Plan connecting transportation operations, charging infrastructure, electrical-grid readiness, climate resilience, site selection, economics, and policy.
In addition to the citywide plan, the project will produce route-electrification guidelines and recommendations for future NYCPS school bus contracts. Together, these deliverables will provide the City with a practical framework for planning and deploying reliable, resilient electric school bus infrastructure through 2035.