A two-stage approach to siting electric bus charging stations considering future-current demand

Abstract

With the global acceleration of the carbon-neutral process and the widespread adoption of electric buses in various countries, the placement of charging stations plays a crucial role in promoting low-carbon development in public transportation systems. This paper proposes a two-stage approach for siting electric bus charging stations considering future-present needs. Initially, perspectives on future and current needs, a community discovery model is constructed using bus space-time swipe card data to identify the municipal bus travel link network. This model considers the OD distribution of bus passenger flow, which is essential for determining the line network and capacity layout. Additionally, a bus first and last station hotspot identification-Voronoi diagram model is established based on the service area partition of bus charging stations, incorporating the weight of charging demand. The model assesses the aggregation of charging demand in each service area using demand aggregation and spatial aggregation indicators. It utilizes the current bus charging requirements aggregation pattern to determine the siting of bus charging stations in the sub-regions, resulting in a data-driven two-stage method for siting electric bus charging stations considering future and current demand. The city is divided into 11 bus charging station subzones using the community discovery model, and sites are selected within each subzone. The results indicate that the demand aggregation degree has increased to some extent in 10 service areas compared to the initial sub-district and an overall increase of 22.79% for the entire city, from 0.487 to 0.598. Among them, 8 service areas have a demand aggregation degree greater than 0.5, indicating that charging demand in most sub-districts is concentrated in high-value aggregation areas. The spatial aggregation degree of all service areas is less than 1, with a decrease in the spatial aggregation degree of 7 service areas and an overall decrease of 11.47% for the entire city, from 0.680 to 0.602. Most service areas experience a decrease in spatial aggregation degree while the demand aggregation degree increases, optimizing the structure of the service areas and reducing the time cost of charging the buses. The model demonstrates good applicability to charging stations and offers an effective approach to siting them.