City’s fleet grows for transit, ambulance

The city of Beaumont received more than $2.8 million in federal grants to help Beaumont Municipal Transit (Zip) lower emissions on its fleet of buses, one of 130 projects funded by President’s infrastructure bill to “put better, cleaner buses in communities across America.” The city applied for the funds through the Federal Transit Administration’s 2023 Low-No Emissions Grant earlier this year.

The grant award, added to a contribution by the city of $499,022, or approximately $100,000 per bus, will be used to replace five buses that have reportedly exceeded their useful life. The new GILLIG Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses will reportedly increase service efficiency, reduce maintenance expenses, provide low-emission and reliable technology, and have improved engines that reduce nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions by 90% more than the old models, according to a city press release.

The new GILLIG CNG bus with the Cummins L9N CNG engine is touted as more energy efficient than the 14-yearolder NABI CNG buses that are being replaced in Beaumont’s fleet. Greater fuel efficiency for the bus fleet will reduce energy consumption, the city staff added. Additional project benefits include improvements in historically transportation-disadvantaged service areas by providing access to jobs, improving reliability, and contributing to better air quality for a vulnerable population.

Beaumont Municipal Transit, the city’s public transportation, operates a fleet of 28 buses to provide transportation in town. The current fixed route fleet includes 17 CNG buses.

“We are extremely grateful to the Department of Transportation for seeing the value in our project and working to improve public transportation across America,” said Transit Manager Claudia San Miguel.

The Beaumont Fire Department announced the addition of valuable assets to their fleet, as well, adding two Basic Life Support (BLS) Med Units recently deployed to the field for the first time.

“The new type of ambulance will help alleviate some of the patient care concerns and ensure the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) division is able to average a minimum of seven available Med Units in service every day, with the potential to staff up to nine Med Units, which the division is licensed for,” the city announced. “BLS Medical Units provide basic life support and transport for patients in non-critical medical situations, which makes up the bulk of Beaumont Fire-Rescue calls. The Advanced Life Support (ALS) med units are staffed with Advanced EMTs and Paramedics who provide care to our more critical patients.”

“This is the first step in being able to offer a tiered level of medical service, which gives us the ability to treat critical calls differently than non-emergency and to more effectively be able to allocate resources,” said Fire Chief Earl White. “We are excited to be able to provide this additional level of service to the community and want the citizens to know we do not take public safety concerns lightly. We are continually working to improve our level of service to our community. We are working towards additional services to be able to offer a true Mobile Integrated Healthcare (MIH) Program to provide nonemergency medical assessments, preventive health care education, and telemedicine.”