Ohio State expands bus R&D projects, capabilities

In 2017, The Ohio State University Center for Automotive Research (CAR) was selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Authority (FTA) as the program manager and official test site for the FTA Low and No Emissions (LoNo) Component Assessment Program. A year later, The Ohio State University was designated an FTA Bus Testing Center.

Under the FTA LoNo program, Ohio State was recently awarded an additional $7 million in capital funding for a total of $14 million to develop and support the on-campus Bus Testing Center. In addition, significant funds to expand the work were included in the recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. This provides the first phase of a number of investments from industry and government in expanded laboratory capabilities on Ohio State’s campus and at the Transportation Research Center (TRC).

LoNo programs support the introduction of low and no emissions transit buses into transit system fleets. Ohio State will perform full vehicle life-cycle evaluations, system level and individual component testing, in partnership with TRC. The results will provide unbiased public assessments of low- or no-emission vehicles, systems and components, documenting their real-world maintainability, reliability, performance, structural integrity and efficiency.

CAR recently completed an architectural site feasibility study to add a new 15,000 square foot heavy-duty chassis test laboratory to the existing CAR site. The current facility design includes a temperature controlled chassis dynamometer, new battery test labs, vehicle service bays and office/meeting space. A laboratory expansion would expand capabilities including electric machine test labs, autonomous system development and validation, and vehicular cybersecurity research.