Garrison Mobile Equipment unveiled new, electric vehicles while celebrating The Green Line's nine-year anniversary, Thursday at the Ocean Breeze on Camp Foster.
"After planning and researching for over two years, we are now beginning to launch a new environmentally-friendly fleet of electric vehicles," said Thomas L. Ramer, the operations officer at GME. "This new fleet of vehicles will consist of both electric cars and buses. There will be charging stations placed throughout the bases that are going to be solar powered. So if there is not a vehicle being charged at it, it will be putting electricity back into the grid."
The new electric vehicles are being launched to reduce the amount of money spent on fuel and to help lessen the country's dependence on foreign oil, said Ramer.
"As of right now, we have 20 electric vehicles," said Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Conrad. "To charge these vehicles every workday, it will cost about $9,000 a year. That saves us $48,000 a year that would have been spent on the government vehicles we are currently using."
Another reason for doing this is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases, said Karen Balabis, the Environmental Management System coordinator.
"It helps make the Department of Defense stronger by reducing fuel expenses, allowing them to put the money towards something else," said Ramer.
In addition to celebrating its ninth birthday, TGL is also celebrating the 10 million miles it has driven and nine million passengers it has carried; all without being involved in a single accident.
"The key to our accident rate is our drivers," said Ramer. "We chose to hire master labor contracted professional drivers."
According to Ramer, drivers are thoroughly screened before they ever receive keys and start driving. Doing so prevents anyone from driving if they are not physically or mentally capable of doing so.
"All this goes back to two of our founding principles of safety and professionalism," said Ramer. "We do this every day to ensure everyone is completely focused on both at all times."
The Green Line started with only 10 buses, which operated five days a week and about 12 hours a day, said Ramer. At that time, TGL only transported passengers from base to base.
TGL has since expanded to include 46 buses, which operate seven days a week, 18 hours a day and transport passengers from base to base, as well as to stops throughout the interior of the bases.
"We plan to improve the bus stops in the near future; we want to install solar powered lights in them," said Ramer. "Also, we want to add digital signs to the bus stops and digital route indicators to the buses themselves."
As TGL makes using their services easier, there is still something that passengers can do to ensure that improvements continue to be made and TGL continues to operate, said Ramer.
Ramer encourages personnel to ride The Green Line.
"Without passengers, we are failing to meet our goal of one rider per mile," said Ramer. "Without riders, TGL is going away. If no one is using it, it is hard to justify why they should continue to provide the funding for it."
For more information, call 645-3843, or visit www.mcbbutler.usmc.mil/greenline.