Phone, camera, and car batteries die quicker during the cold weather.
But what about Mountain Line’s battery-powered electric buses which may be someone’s main method of transportation?
Mountain Line provides an essential service to Missoula residents by offering buses to many different stops around town.
The buses are housed and charged in a garage overnight so that when temperatures drop into the negatives they won’t freeze up.
However, bus batteries are affected by single-digit temperatures so Mountain Line has more frequent bus rotations by bringing in lower vehicles and sending out charged ones.
“There is a 30 to 40% reduction in range so it does mean the buses need to be swapped out more quickly,” said Mountain Line spokeswoman Olga Kreimer. “But we’ve been running electric buses for about four years now and the system and the sort of setup is built around electric buses and so there’s not generally any change in our operations from that element of cold.”
The busses are equipped with heaters for wintertime use but drivers still wear layers since they are frequently letting cold air in.
Mountain Line also accounts for heavy snow accumulation on the roads and plans routes using the most consistently plowed streets.
The transit service also has backup routes just in case of an unexpected diversion.
