Tag: 2012

Doors Open Ottawa 2012-Part II

by barbstruestories, posted in Interesting things..who would have known?

Ottawa Carleton (OC) Transpo-The  Maintenance Garage-Part II

Who cares?

While I spend little time thinking about or noticing automobiles or knowing statistics about vehicles, (I mix up the various symbols on the back of cars-thinking a Mazda logo is a Mercedes and so on.) bus statistics are pretty interesting.  During our recent visit to the OC Transpo site as part of Doors Open Ottawa , we boarded a modern articulated (bend in the middle) bus  and traveled around and through the “state of the art” maintenance garage and the bus wash.  The bus wash is just like an automated car wash-only much bigger.  The garage looked pretty impressive.  They are proud of it, for sure.

If someone does care:

  • Ottawa has a population of 900,000. 
  • The budget for OC Transpo is approximately $4M annually
  • OC Transpo is now running a number of hybrid buses
  • If all the OC Transpo buses were put end to end, they would stretch for 8 km.
  • An articulated bus (bend in the middle) costs approximately $750,000 to purchase
  • That same bus (as above) weighs 19,000 kg.
  • Each bus puts on approximately 60,000 km/year
  • Gas tank-450 L
  • Fueling up at the garage-when the nozzle is put into the gas tank, the flow rate is somewhere close 450L/min.  You could fill up your car in seconds.  At that rate  I could spend more time memorizing car logos then.
And a final vintage bus picture to end the true story.