In Lafayette / Purdue campus area a lot of new hybrid city buses have been poping up all over the place. They are awesome because they dont have explosions of black smoke when they start from a stop. I rarely see any exhaust from them. I havent riden in one myself but my wife has and she says they are amazingly nice. Very quiet (duh). Anyways, HERE is an article about them all over. Here is a horrible pic from my phone of one I saw in town.
My city has GM Hybrid busses (along with biodiesel and some other alternative fuel busses) for real world testing. I rode on one of the GM Hybrid busses and I must say it was a pretty unique experience (esp. if you're used to the diesel busses). The electric trolley busses are still my favourite but the hybrid isn't too bad. however, I have heard that it has problems tackling some of our hills even with half capacity.
I think ours run on natural gas. I know our local Waste Disposal "Dumpster" company trucks run on natural gas.
I just thought about this, it must really suck to be that bus driver just for the fact that I bet 9 out of 10 people, when they get on ask "so where do you plug it in?" Or those biggit idiots who think they know everything there is about a hybrid but have never driven one (you know who I'm talkin about) say "errr, well ya know it costs more in fossile fuels and energy to create one of these than what they save in their lifetime" I'd be like "sir, GET TO DA BAK OF DA BUS!" lol
