Electric Vehicle Blueprint for Twin Rivers Unified School District

This project developed an electric vehicle blueprint for transitioning the entire Twin Rivers Unified School District school bus fleet to zero-emission vehicles and progressing toward its sustainability goals. The blueprint documents impact assessments, charging infrastructure and site analyses, environmental and economic analyses, and innovative technology evaluations to support the District’s phased procurement and deployment of electric buses and charging infrastructure. The blueprint includes a Workforce Development Plan that identifies key players in the Sacramento community to help the District provide employees with the critical skills, tools, and functional experience needed to service and maintain battery electric buses, recruit new talent, and develop training programs for a future workforce. As an early adopter, the District faced multiple obstacles, but it has taken significant steps and made meaningful progress toward its fleet electrification goals. The report recommends that the District continue engaging with other early adopters and technology experts to explore local solutions to technology deployment, adoption, and procurement issues. The District also faces critical resource limitations, including human resource and financial capacity constraints that Covid-19 exacerbated. The report recommends that Federal, State, local governments, and relevant funding agencies recognize that these staffing challenges will make it difficult for school districts to take advantage of electric vehicle funding opportunities and meet fleet electrification goals. As the District takes the next steps in the transition, the report recommends ensuring that the newly installed Ford Pro Charging system, including the telematics integration, is fully commissioned, operational, and set up to gather, analyze and report key metrics on the fleet.