Massachusetts’ Accelerating Clean Transportation (ACT) School Bus Program

In this webinar, hosted by the Clean Energy States Alliance, guest speakers from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) presented their award-winning Accelerating Clean Transportation (ACT) School Bus Program.

The ACT School Bus Program provides technical planning services and financial support to Massachusetts public school districts and/or transportation providers to complete successful electric school bus deployment projects. The ACT School Bus Program prioritizes underserved and overburdened school districts with the intent to provide fleets with hands-on technical assistance during an initial planning and pilot phase that will enable school districts to continue to electrify future portions of their fleet independently or with scaled-back financial and technical assistance.

ACT School Bus has elevated awareness of electrification, resulting in over 65 percent of all Massachusetts EPA Clean School Bus Priority Districts applying for Clean School Bus funding, and all those awardees applying to ACT School Bus. All ACT School Bus projects have retained their funding, met key deadlines, made decisions based upon full-fleet electrification, and leveraged MassCEC’s funding contribution by 5x. In total, MassCEC has supported two-thirds of the electric school buses in Massachusetts through the first two rounds of ACT School Bus. By prioritizing underserved and overburdened school districts, and by leveraging existing federal programs, the agency is helping to decarbonize the hardest-to-reach segment of a high-polluting sector.

MassCEC received a 2024 State Leadership in Clean Energy Award for the ACT School Bus Program. Programs are evaluated based on leadership, innovation, cost-effectiveness, and replicability. According to the judges: “Diesel-fueled school bus emissions are especially harmful to vulnerable children in LMI communities. The program leverages and compliments federal programs. It is a thoughtful approach to equity, creating tangible public health benefits, while decarbonizing transportation. By working with school districts to increase a wide range of capacities needed to roll out a successful conversion to EV buses, this program stands out.”

Speakers:

• Rachel Ackerman, Clean Transportation Senior Program Director, MassCEC
• Ruedi Hauser, Clean Transportation Program Manager, MassCEC
• Anna Ziai, Clean Energy States Alliance (moderator)