Miami-Dade Building Electric Bus Operations Center

A new bus operations center in South Florida will be one of the largest all-electric facilities in the country, with 20 acres of charging stations, maintenance facilities, bus dispatch, an emergency command center, and driver training facilities.

As Dan Zukowski explains in Smart Cities Dive, the South Dade Transit Operations Center will serve Miami-Dade County’s fleet of public transit buses, which currently includes 69 electric buses and will soon add 100 more. This will include Miami-Dade’s first bus rapid transit line, which “will cover a 20-mile corridor from the Dadeland South Metrorail station in Pinecrest, Florida, to Florida City, Florida. It will include 14 level-boarding stations for accessibility, traffic signal preemption to keep buses moving through intersections and gate arms with warning lights at intersections for added safety.”

The facility includes heat insulation to prevent damage from potential fires, a floor slab designed to sit well above land level to prevent flooding, and other features designed to mitigate risks from Florida’s climate.