Optimal Electric Bus Scheduling Based on the Combination of All-Stop and Short-Turning Strategies

Yiming Bie,Mengzhu Guo,Mingjie Hao

doi:10.3390/su13041827

Abstract

The emission of greenhouse gases from public transportation has aroused extensive public attention in recent years. Electric buses have the advantage of zero emission, which could prevent the further deterioration of environmental problems. Since 2018, the number of electric buses has exceeded that of traditional buses. Thus, it is an inevitable trend for the sustainable development of the automobile industry to replace traditional fuel buses, and developing electric buses is an important measure to relieve traffic congestion. Furthermore, the bus scheduling has a significant impact on passenger travel times and operating costs. It is common that passenger demand at different stops is uneven in a public transportation system. Since applying all-stop scheduling only cannot match the passenger demand of some stops with bus resources, this paper proposes an integrated all-stop and short-turning service for electric buses, reducing the influence of uneven ridership on load factor to enhance transit attractiveness. Simultaneously, considering the time-of-use pricing strategy used by the power sector, the combinational charging strategy of daytime and overnight is proposed to reduce electricity costs. Finally, the branch-and-price algorithm is adopted to solve this problem. Compared with all-stop scheduling, the results demonstrate a reduction of 13.5% in total time cost under the combinational scheduling.

Highlights

IntroductionIt is common that the arrival number of passengers at several stops accounts for a large proportion of the total passenger flow, while that at other stops only accounts for a small proportion
We we develop the combinational short-turning and all-stop schedulInthis this research, develop the combinational short-turning and bus all-stop bus ing strategy, which enables an effective allocation of public transport resources to match the scheduling strategy, which enables an effective allocation of public transport resources to number of public transport vehicles with vehicles passenger demand on thedemand line
The strategy leads to a decline in the total passenger travel time cost

Summary

Introduction

It is common that the arrival number of passengers at several stops accounts for a large proportion of the total passenger flow, while that at other stops only accounts for a small proportion. Under this circumstance, all-stop scheduling, in which the bus serves all stops on the line, causes the load factors of vehicles to vary greatly at different stops, while in the integrated all-stop and short-turning service, the bus serves continuous stops with high passenger flow on a segment of the line, which can reasonably allocate bus resources under uneven demand distributions. More vehicles are provided to the overcrowding stops to improve the comfort of passengers and the public transportation attraction

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion