Jacksonville Transportation Authority – Matthew Doolin – 2015

Goals

In 2013, when the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) signed the American Public Transportation Association sustainability commitment, it pledged to become a sustainable champion in the transportation industry. In the summer of 2015, JTA hoped to achieve a higher certification status by completing energy efficiency projects and instilling sustainable principles throughout the organization, so it enlisted Matthew Doolin to help complete some of the research and calculations necessary.

Solutions

As JTA’s 2015 EDF Climate Corps fellow, Doolin began to tackle this challenge by establishing updated building consumption profiles and emission baselines for the fleet and facilities. This data collection effort enabled Doolin and the team at JTA to identify which areas he should focus on in order to have the greatest impact. To make energy use information easier to access and more reliable, Doolin evaluated a submetering installation project. By installing submeters, JTA could better track building usage and identify future energy saving projects. After establishing reliable consumption data, Doolin helped develop lighting standards and ranked LED retrofit projects at JTA’s park-n-ride locations by energy savings and cost.

In addition to helping the team at JTA along the path to realize energy efficiency savings, Doolin calculated potential water savings that could result from installing a water reclamation system at the vehicle wash facility. The water reclamation system would collect water used in washing city busses and then filter it for reuse. This would allow JTA to continue meeting fleet cleanliness standards while cutting water consumption in half.

Potential Impact

In total, the projects Doolin helped accelerate could result in annual savings of 3.3 million gallons of water and 573,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, freeing up $88,000 in operating expenses. Doolin presented his project findings to select members of the JTA Sustainability Committee and provided some next steps that could help the organization to continue to make progress on these initiatives and, therefore, further its mission of becoming a sustainability leader. If implemented, all of these projects should help JTA achieve gold certification status through the American Public Transportation Association.