Nearly $20 million will go to electrify the university’s BruinBus fleet and install underground charging for shuttles and buses along a route that stretches for less than a mile in Westwood. The grant will also fund a new transit hub between the UCLA bus depot and a planned UCLA/Westwood Metro station that would connect to the future D Line subway extension. — Los Angeles Times
The project comes as part of a multimillion-dollar grant to UCLA ahead of its hosting of the 2028 Olympic Village. Under the plans, inductive charging coils will be installed underground along Charles E. Young Drive between the Westwood Plaza intersection and Murphy Hall, while stationary chargers will also be added at passenger drop-off and pickup locations.
Buses traveling along the roadways will pick up charge while driving or parked. The team behind the project hopes it will eliminate the need for drivers to hook vehicles up to charging ports, thus saving time.
"A wireless inductive option is a game changer," UCLA Fleet and Transit director Clinton Bench told the LA Times. "When a vehicle is driving over [a charger], the vehicle can collect charge while it’s moving. If you’re stationary at a stop and you had a five to seven-minute layover [...] that’s probably giving you a pretty good head start on your next route and reducing the amount of charge you need in the evening."
The world's first electrified road or charging vehicles opened in Sweden in 2018.
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