Project Choice - Hybrid Bus

Hybrid Vehicle Engineering for Economy, the Environment and Customer Delight

MIRA played an integral part in the design and development of ‘Project CHOICE’; a part DfT funded, collaborative project to develop and trial a hybrid bus with the goal of setting a benchmark for the passenger bus of the future.

The project placed particular emphasis on the use of route data and GPS information to enhance the use of the vehicle, especially in city applications. (‘CHOICE’: City Hybrid-electric bus with Optimised efficiency using Information guidance system for passenger Convenience and vehicle Energy consumption).

Project partners included:

• Bus manufacturer, Alexander Dennis
• Energy Technology Services
• Coventry City Council
• University of Warwick
• MST Ltd
• Terrafix
• Beta R&D

MIRA's Responsibilities:

MIRA took responsibility for developing the vehicle clean control strategy by providing a VMU (Vehicle Management Unit). MIRA was also involved in provision of the auxiliary power system for the vehicle computing systems and electrical safety / homologation.

The Vehicle Management Unit (VMU) controls the flow of electrical and mechanical energy around the hybrid electric vehicle and is of fundamental importance to the efficient operation of the vehicle. The novelty of the control strategy produced by MIRA is that it allows clean management of one vehicle or even a fleet of vehicles; providing local authorities with a city pollution management tool. MIRA have filed a patent application to protect the IPR behind this strategy.

The design enabled use of a modern 2.0l passenger car diesel engine compared to the traditional 6 litre plus used in conventional buses and so far has met all of its very challenging targets.  Future plans include proving the fleet management concept and extending the trial to other cities.

Further details are included in this article extracted from 'M' the MIRA customer newsletter:

Project Choice Hybrid Bus pdf (98KB)