MCPS Contracts to Replace Electric Buses

Rockville, MD — Montgomery County Public Schools announced today that it will abandon the remaining portions of its troubled electric bus contract and instead lease a fleet of retired Dulles Airport mobile lounges to fill the gap.

The move follows a ruling from the Maryland State Board of Education that the original contract was illegally awarded. Superintendent Thomas Taylor, who began unwinding the deal earlier this year, called the pivot “practical, familiar, and safe.”

“We need a fleet that demonstrates decades of reliability and starts in cold weather,” Taylor said. “Right now, the best immediately available platform is Dulles' fleet of retired Passenger Transfer Vehicles (PVTs) originally built by Chrysler during the Eisenhower Administration.”

MCPS will keep its existing 285 electric buses in service until they fail, then scrap them. The Dulles PVTs solve the immediate challenge of replacing 40 buses it will no longer receive, and the 285 that are expected to fail imminently will be replaced by refurbished PVTs from JFK in New York and Philadelphia International Airport.

Transportation planners say bus lanes will be widened county-wide.

The airport mobile lounges, known for their safe speed and spacious interiors, were chosen for reliability and capacity. Taylor acknowledged concerns after one crashed into a Dulles concourse this week but dismissed the relevance.

“That incident involved docking with a terminal,” he said. “Our schools do not have terminals, though we are considering one for Crown.”

The Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) announced it will widen existing bus lanes on major corridors to accommodate the 16-foot-wide PVTs. "We may have to take another lane on Old Georgetown and University," a transportation official said.

The first mobile lounges are expected to begin student transport next week.