Pollution Probe report offers insights into electric school bus potential

With students heading back to school this month, health and climate concerns around diesel school bus pollution continues to grow, leading to discussions around electric school buses (ESBs) as an ideal alternative.

Paving the way for a cleaner future, Pollution Probe’s new ESB Pilot Program in Edmonton—conducted in partnership with Mobility Futures Lab and RFS Energy and with funding from the Alberta Ecotrust Foundation—offers tangible insights to help schools, fleet operators, municipalities, and communities better understand the opportunities and challenges of electrifying student transportation.

Operating over 298 trips between April 2024 and April 2025, the real-world data collected from an electric school bus equipped with a diesel heater was compared against two modeled configurations, a diesel bus with a diesel heater and an electric bus with an electric heater, to assess relative emissions impacts.

Key findings include:

• ESBs significantly reduced greenhouse gases by approximately 28-38 per cent and nitrogen oxides by around 40-49 per cent under Alberta’s current energy grid mix.
• Level 2 charging was sufficient for daily school bus operations, avoiding the need for expensive DC fast chargers.
• ESBs can reliably meet operational requirements in Canadian winter conditions with appropriate strategies in place.
• Fully electric heating provides the lowest emissions, though diesel heaters remain a viable transitional option.

Insights from the Executive Summary:

The findings from this demonstration confirm that ESBs can reliably meet operational requirements in Canadian winter conditions with appropriate strategies in place. While transitional solutions like auxiliary diesel heaters remain practical short-term options, ongoing improvements in battery and thermal management technologies will further reduce reliance on diesel heating systems. As electricity grids become cleaner, prioritizing the full electrification of both propulsion and heating will maximize the environmental and public health benefits of transitioning to ESBs.

To access the complete report, visit: Electric School Bus Demonstration: An Edmonton Case Study

Featured photo credit: Alberta School Bus Association