Civil Engineering Reference
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how large the fleet is. So school bus fleets that travel a lot of miles realize
more cost benefits from CNG.
Notice that the 100% line is much closer to the 50% line than the 150%
line, which indicates a given reduction in maintenance costs has a larger
impact on project economics if the starting CNG maintenance cost is greater
than the diesel maintenance costs.
What if I Have to Hire a Hostler or Attendant?
The VICE model's baseline assumes that fleets will not encounter
additional staff costs when they switch from diesel to CNG. However,
numerous circumstances can contribute to the need for more hostlers or
attendants at the CNG station. There is also a case where a fleet can eliminate
hostlers if they use slow-fill. To test the effect of hiring or firing personnel,
NREL ran the model from a two-hostler reduction to a four-hostlers addition
and looked at how that affects the number of vehicles a fleet needs for a 7-year
payback. The results are shown in Figure 19.
The hostler is assumed to cost $24 per hour when benefits are added. He is
assumed to work an 8-hour shift 5 days a week, and additional refueling is
done by the drivers before or after their routes. Therefore, the addition of a
hostler costs school and refuse fleets $4,200 per month or about $50,000 per
year.
Figure 19. Effect of personnel costs on required fleet size.
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