Bus Design Research Articles

Light Weighting of Buses using Aluminium with Safety and Durability Considerations

Automobiles, while making living easy and convenient, have also made human life more complex and vulnerable to toxic emissions. Transport sector is huge contributor in polluting air in the entire world in the tune of around 23%.Mass transport uses buses as the medium for generalized and convenient means for commutation from one place to other. Similar pattern is observed in India for mass transportation mainly in the cities. However, commuting through buses comes with penalty of environmental pollution. City buses are large contributor in GHG emission and can be considered as prime candidates for making any kind of changes which will help in reducing environmental pollution. Immense potential lies in existing bus designs for weight optimization which has direct impact in improving fuel economy and hence will have sustainable impact in reducing carbon emissions.
 This paper outlines systematic approach used for development of lightweight buses using Aluminium addressing safety, durability and necessary regulatory requirements. Effective use of aluminium in development of lightweight bus structure is demonstrated in this project. While designing lightweight structure for weight optimization due care is taken for addressing prevailing regulatory norms related to AIS:052 bus body code, AIS:153 outlining safety requirements and Urban Bus Specification issued by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways specifying strength and safety requirements of bus structure. Aluminium bus designs developed shows more than 30% weight reduction compared to steel structured buses of similar class. Fuel efficiency improvement in the tune of minimum 8% and maximum 10% are observed during field level trials.

Optimization of Energy Management in a City Bus Powered by the Hydrogen Fuel Cells

The article describes the design and optimization of operation of an electric bus powered by the hydrogen fuel cells. At the beginning, an approach to design of a 12-meter urban bus, powered by hydrogen, is presented, as well as examples of components for its construction. Next, the problem of selecting the size of traction batteries and stacks of the Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) hydrogen fuel cells was discussed. These are the key components affecting the price of the bus and should be subject to optimization. The results of optimization of the size of traction batteries and the fuel cell system for a bus traveling in inter-city traffic are presented. The optimization was based on data from the literature and data from the monitoring system of actual hydrogen powered buses located on the Internet platform. The main purpose of the research, which was to determine the total costs of ownership (TCO), is presented as well.

Center Stack Casing Bakeout BUS Design for the NSTX-Upgrade Fusion Device

The National Spherical Torus eXperiment (NSTX) has undergone a major upgrade to NSTX-U at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. NSTX-U will double the toroidal field, plasma current, and neutral beam injection heating power, as well as significantly increase the pulse duration. The plasma-facing components (PFCs) in the NSTX-U vacuum vessel are mainly graphite, which has a total surface area of about 41 m2. To achieve high vacuum and reduce impurity from PFCs during operation, it is important to bake the graphite parts and remove most of the moisture absorbed by graphite during installation. Typical bakeout for NSTX-U lasts about 3 to 4 weeks. The NSTX-U inner vacuum vessel, i.e., the center stack casing, will be heated to about 450°C by passing 8 KA direct current through it during bakeout. The design of the bakeout bus directly attached to the casing flanges at vessel top and bottom are covered in detail in this paper. At the vessel top, the water-cooled bus terminal is subject to high thermal growth (about 18 mm in the vertical direction and 3 mm in the radial direction). At the vessel bottom, the bakeout bus must withstand 120 KA of halo current during disruption, as well as dislocation from thermal growth. This paper covers the design to address all these challenges. A machined CuCrZr terminal with internal water-cooling channels was used to prevent any brazing work in high stress areas. Detailed analysis will also be covered to show that the proposed design can satisfy thermal, structural, and fatigue requirements during bakeout and operation.

GIS Approach Applied to Tourist Bus Route Design on Lanzarote Island

Current public transport supply on the Island of Lanzarote is clearly insufficient, and opportunities to substitute private automobiles are extremely limited, for residents and tourists alike. Therefore, this paper analyzes the possibility of introducing a tourist bus service to connect Lanzarote’s main tourist attractions, and it also focuses on a move towards public transport by tourists to reduce the CO2 emitted by excessive private car usage. This work assesses the impact of road transport in accessing tourist activities on Lanzarote Island and its implications for sustainable tourism development. The evaluation is based on the volume of CO2 emissions for the current tourist mobility model on the island and an alternative option such as a tourist bus route. The methodology employed here is the application of a geographical information system (GIS). The study analyzes how to manage the impact of road access to tourist sites through the implementation of a new tourist bus line. The study seeks to evaluate the design of a new bus to deliver tourists to key tourist activities on Lanzarote Island. A GIS-T algorithm is used to compare the level of CO2 emissions from the current tourist mobility model versus the implementation of a new touristic bus. The levels of pollution produced by the present system and the tourist route are compared, and different levels of demand for the new circuit are considered. We conclude that in order to reduce the current levels of emissions by around 15%, some 19.4% of the tourists that currently use hire cars would have to switch to the new tourist bus service.

Expression and Validation of Online Bus Headways considering Passenger Crowding

Passenger crowding in a city bus is uneven and the most crowded area always appears in the wheelbase of the carriage. The present study aimed to provide a sensitive indicator of the most crowded area to schedule bus headways online using a binocular camera sensor. The algorithm of standee density in the wheelbase area (SDWA) was given by a nonlinear regression model considering standees’ preferences for the standing area, and its goodness of fit and continuity were tested. Considering the characteristics of city bus operation, the proportion of the number of interstops determined from the SDWA was used as a judgment index for passenger crowding. Based on the SDWA algorithm and the judgment index, an online headway model of city buses was proposed, and the feasibility of such a model was verified through a case study in Xi’an city. The proposed model might be beneficial to bus scheduling, seating provision, and bus design.

Design and verification of SPI bus IP core

With the development of chip design technology, the complexity of the chip is getting bigger and bigger, and various IP (Intellectual Property) is integrated to form SoC (System on Chip). In order to improve the efficiency of designing SoC, IP reuse technology is often used, so the development of IP has a wide range of significance and use value. The SPI bus is a bus protocol often used in chip communication and has many application scenarios. Therefore, this research mainly develops the SPI bus IP. During the development process, the SPI bus design is carried out, then based on the UVM verification methodology the designed IP has been functionally verified, and finally, a fully functional SPI bus design is obtained.

On the design of an optimal flexible bus dispatching system with modular bus units: Using the three-dimensional macroscopic fundamental diagram

This study proposes a novel flexible bus dispatching system in which a fleet of fully automated modular bus units, together with conventional buses, serves the passenger demand. These modular bus units can either operate individually or combined (forming larger modular buses with a higher passenger capacity). This provides enormous flexibility to manage the service frequencies and vehicle allocation, reducing thereby the operating cost and improving passenger mobility.We develop an optimization model used to determine the optimal composition of modular bus units and the optimal service frequency at which the buses (both conventional and modular) should be dispatched across each bus line. We explicitly account for the dynamics of traffic congestion and complex interactions between the modes at the network level based on the recently proposed three-dimensional macroscopic fundamental diagram (3D-MFD). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of the 3D-MFD and modular bus units for the frequency setting problem in the domain of bus operations.Numerical results show the improvements in the total system cost made by adjusting the number of combined modular bus units and their dispatching frequencies to the evolution of both, the car and the bus passenger demand. A comparison with the commonly used approach that considers only the bus system (neglecting the complex multimodal interactions and congestion propagation) reveals the value of the proposed modeling framework. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of the effect of the operating unit cost of modular bus units, the size of the bus network, and the size of the bus fleet sheds light on the robustness of the proposed optimization framework.

Improving Bus Route Design Using Stop Balancing and Community-level Data

Public transportation brings numerous benefits to communities when it provides people with mobility and access to opportunities. A well-designed and widely utilized system is required for regions to gain access to these benefits. Transit policies must be efficient, relevant to their specific region, and take into consideration how residents utilize public transit. In this paper, we focus on the implications of bus stop balancing and route schedule design for the Madison Metropolitan Transit in Madison, Wisconsin. We discuss where populations live and work to illustrate potential servicing barriers that limit access to employment centers. We recommend adopting standardized spacing between stops of 1000-2500 feet to increase transit speed and reliability with a particular focus on areas with low car ownership. Finally, we spotlight how transit services can be expanded to include non-traditional commuters. The adoption of these suggested improvements will lead to faster transit times with improved reliability and more equitable service within the Greater Madison Area.

Attitude Control System Design and Simulation for the SVOM Mission

SVOM is an astronomical satellite used to observe a collection of Gamma Ray Burst and other targets. The general pointing attitude is inertial pointing in J2000 coordinate. As the telescope’s exposure time will be 100s or even longer, the satellite platform should provide severe stability during the exposure period. This article describes the design of Attitude Control System (ACS) for SVOM satellite. First, ACS’ key performance requirements are presented which include the extremely high stability target, 0.8 arcsec/100s along Ys and Zs axes. Second, ACS hardware selected and bus design are discribed. Then, the ACS modes and transfer logic are introduced. Next, the controller design and simulation results are given. At last, the conclusion is obtained and all the required index are fulfilled by current ACS design.

Experimental and calculation method for determining the parameters of a car suspension with an elastic elastomeric element

We present a suspension design the elastic elements of which are made of elastomers. This allows us to reduce the weight of unsprung parts of the vehicle significantly, which affects the quality of ride in a positive way. The aim of the study is to determine the elastic characteristic, the damping coefficient, the natural oscillation frequency of the sprung masses and the specific dynamic energy intensity of the suspension with elastomeric elastic elements. The determination of these parameters is carried out on the basis of experimental data got as a results of static and dynamic loading of a package of elastomeric elements. The elastic characteristic of the elastomeric element is obtained by static reduction and is not linear. Stiffness estimation of an elastomeric element for a specific point of characteristic or for a limited area is suggested. Also, there are significant friction losses during deformation, it is quite difficult to take them into account as a separate parameter when evaluating the elastomer damping properties. It is recommended to estimate their absorption capacity using a “conditional” damping coefficient. Its value is determined by the nature of the damped oscillations process under dynamic loading of an elastomeric elements package implemented on a special pendulum copra. The method of reducing the elastic characteristic and the damping coefficient of the elastomer to the “wheel” using graphoanalytic techniques is described in detail. The values of natural oscillation frequency and the energy intensity of the suspension with elastomeric elastic element are calculated based on the values of the suspension static and dynamic deflections and the forces in the tire contact with the supporting surface. Relying on experience in analyzing the standard car suspension parameters, it is concluded that using elastomeric elastic elements in the suspension design of trucks, buses and all-terrain vehicles is advisable.

Bus stop design and traffic safety: An explorative analysis

One way to prioritize public transport over private vehicle mobility, is to implement curbside rather than layby bus stop designs. There is, however, uncertainty about the consequences of implementing curbside rather than layby stops for traffic collision risks. To begin investigating this issue, we describe an exploratory analysis in which national data describing bus stops, road properties, traffic collisions and built-up areas were merged based on geographical location. Analysis of the resulting data set suggests that the relative rates of traffic collisions resulting in personal injury within 60 m of the bus stop, is higher for curbside than for layby stops in built-up areas (0.32 vs. 0.22 collisions per ten million passing vehicles, respectively). Our analyses suggest that the higher risk of nearby collisions for curbside stops is not necessarily due to bus stop design, but rather because they tend to be located closer to junctions and side roads, where collisions are more likely. Our data are not consistent with hypotheses that curbside stops are associated with greater shares of head-on or rear-end collisions than layby stops, nor that layby stops are associated with greater shares of side-on collisions than curbside stops. The limitations of this exploratory analysis, and of the use of national-level data for studying the effects of bus stop design on collision risk, are related to lack of control of bus stop design features other than curbside vs. layby, statistical power, data registration and compromises made when coupling data based on geographical location. Future work should attempt to build on our approach, and supplement database analyses with analysis of in-depth reports of bus stop collisions, observations of road user conflicts near bus stops, and before-after studies following conversion from layby to curbside stops or from curbside to layby stops.

Ефективність теплорозподільчих пристроїв системи опалення салонів автобусів

Одним із домінуючих напрямів удосконалення конструкції автобусів є роботи з підвищення ефективності функціонування їх допоміжних систем, при цьому одночасно зі зниженням ними експлуатаційних витрат енергії, тобто покращення паливної ощадливості. На паливну ощадливість автобусів істотно впливають енергетичні витрати допоміжних агрегатів і систем. Щодо автобусів будь-якого класу, то однією із найбільших споживачів енергії є система опалення пасажирського приміщення і робочого місця водія. Встановлено, що реалізація завдання зниження енергетичних витрат системою опалення салонів автобусів є важливою проблемою під час проєктування й експлуатації автобусів. Отримано результати випробувань і здійснено їх аналіз щодо доцільності використання опалювачів салону автобусів з одним вентилятором, замість двох. Практична значущість досліджень полягає у зменшенні кількості електродвигунів з вентиляторами та зниження енергоспоживання системою опалення салону автобусів. Під час експериментальних досліджень проведено випробування аеродинамічних характеристик опалювачів з двома і одним осьовим вентилятором. Випробовували продуктивність за різних значень напруги на клемах електродвигунів та теплової ефективності радіатора обігрівача – температури повітря на вході і виході з обігрівача. За результатами експерименту встановлено, що продуктивність обігрівача із двома вентиляторами є тільки на 25 % більша, ніж з одним. Це явище пояснено на основі моделювання процесу з допомогою електричної аналогії. Обґрунтовано, що за одного і того самого типу теплорозсіювального радіатора, доцільно використовувати опалювачі салону пасажирських транспортних засобів із одним вентилятором замість двох. Причиною меншої ефективності опалювачів з двома вентиляторами є насамперед те, що аеродинамічний опір на вході двох вентиляторів є удвічі більшим, ніж на одному вентиляторі. Зі збільшенням продуктивності вентилятора теплотворність радіатора зменшується. Це пов'язано з тим, що зі збільшенням повітряного потоку через серцевину радіатора, зростання зняття повітрям температури з поверхні трубок радіатора перевищує інтенсивність теплообміну між нагріваючою рідиною і внутрішньою поверхнею трубок радіатора. Для збільшення аеродинамічної ефективності опалювачів салону доцільно зменшити аеродинамічний опір на вході у вентилятор, наприклад, застосуванням вентиляторів з високими аеродинамічними характеристиками.

Toward a Substation Automation System Based on IEC 61850

With the global trend to digitalize substation automation systems, International Electro technical Commission 61850, a communication protocol defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission, has been given much attention to ensure consistent communication and integration of substation high-voltage primary plant assets such as instrument transformers, circuit breakers and power transformers with various intelligent electronic devices into a hierarchical level. Along with this transition, equipment of primary plants in the switchyard, such as non-conventional instrument transformers, and a secondary system including merging units are expected to play critical roles due to their fast-transient response over a wide bandwidth. While a non-conventional instrument transformer has advantages when compared with the conventional one, extensive and detailed performance investigation and feasibility studies are still required for its full implementation at a large scale within utilities, industries, smart grids and digital substations. This paper is taking one step forward with respect to this aim by employing an optimized network engineering tool to evaluate the performance of an Ethernet-based network and to validate the overall process bus design requirement of a high-voltage non-conventional instrument transformer. Furthermore, the impact of communication delay on the substation automation system during peak traffic is investigated through a detailed simulation analysis.

The Sustainable Development of Smart Cities: A Case Study of the Design of driverless bus stops in Zhengzhou

With the arrival of the “5G” era and the digital economy era, the development of the city has permeated all aspects of the city, and with the emergence of “smart city”, it is likely to have “smart” everywhere in the future city. At the same time, “Future Smart Transportation” was proposed as a discussion topic at the “2019 (8th) International Smart City Summit and Smart Ecology Expo”. The research and development of the driverless bus stops will spur the driverless bus stops to take on the past with a brand-new look, welcome the future, and contribute to the sustainable development of the smart city. Taking the driverless bus station in Zhengdong New District as an example, this paper explores the sustainable development of a smart city through the creation of manned (open)-shared (transition space)-driverless (semi-enclosed space) space and the introduction of modular design approach. To connect people’s work, life and transportation, and derive a new public transportation environment based on manned bus stops, namely, intelligence, sustainability, environmental friendliness and safety, thus create a smart transportation pilot to embrace the bright future of sustainable smart cities.

Design of 3U-CubeSat Bus Based on TRICOM Experience to Improve Versatility and Easiness of AIT

Design of 3U-CubeSat Bus Based on TRICOM Experience to Improve Versatility and Easiness of AIT

DESIGN OF HVAC AIR DUCTS FOR ELECTRIC BUSES AND FLOW ANALYSIS WITH CFD METHOD

DESIGN OF HVAC AIR DUCTS FOR ELECTRIC BUSES AND FLOW ANALYSIS WITH CFD METHOD

Design of multi node CAN bus in high frequency system

In order to ensure the reliability of multiple nodes CAN bus in high frequency system, we need to find the design method of CAN bus. In this paper, we rely on the test platform to carry out tests and summarize the design method of elimination high frequency system.

Gender-Responsive Public Transportation in the Dammam Metropolitan Region, Saudi Arabia

The limited availability of public transportation in Saudi Arabia leads to an increased demand for private vehicles. An increase in using private cars does not meet the global sustainability goals, e.g., reducing energy consumption and improving the air quality. Road users should be encouraged to use sustainable mobility modes, particularly public transportation, equally accessible to both men and women However, women’s mobility has been somewhat limited and challenged in spatio-temporal terms, and partly due to socio-cultural barriers. This study attempts to understand the gender experience of a sample of public transport users and consider their aspirations and needs into daily mobility. A survey campaign (structured interviews and online questionnaires) was launched in the Dammam Metropolitan Region (DMR), taking four different types of respondents into account. The results suggest a predominant preference for taxis for shopping and leisure activities due to a poor public transport service, pivotally characterized by limited operational routes, hours, and infrastructure. This study ponders upon the adequacy of the supporting infrastructures and interior design of the public buses to women’s needs and compare them with global best practices. The results suggest that, due to the absence of a gender-responsive design and infrastructure, women are forced to use taxis, although privacy and a sense of insecurity often become concerns when traveling alone or with children. The study results allow future research to be expanded, considering women’s mobility patterns, needs, and embedded barriers by comparing the results with current transport policies, plans, and practices.

Optimization and Simulation of Controller Area Network Communication Model Based on Industrial Internet of Things Platform

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an information carrier based on network communication, and it can make all general physical objects which can be independently addressed from an interconnected network. Controller Area Network (CAN) is a kind of serial communication network which can effectively support distributed control or real-time control. This paper proposes the design of an IoT-oriented universal CAN bus. In order to build a complete CAN communication simulation model, message sending and message receiving models are constructed, respectively. The simulation experiment proves that the IoT-oriented network communication model designed in this paper not only has low power consumption, but it can also solve the front-end compatibility problems caused by different communication protocols.

Crash Analysis of Bus Body Structure using Finite Element Analysis

Crash analysis of non-air-conditioned sleeper bus has been carried in present work. Using relevant automotive industry standards (052 and 119) bus dimensions are considered for design. Surface modeling technique is used to prepare computer aided model. Further the bus design is freeze using finite element analysis for different crash conditions as front impact, side impact and rear impact. Crash analysis of the proposed bus design is carried using Ansys Workbench. Using the outcomes from finite element analysis as stresses, deflections, internal and kinetic energies during various crash conditions are estimated. Mesh generator is used to mesh the complex bus model. The stress and deflection magnitudes of proposed bus model are in good agreement with the experimental results available in literature. Design improvements are made using the finite element analysis outcomes, observing the deformation patterns additional pillar members of suitable length are added to increase the dynamic crush and further enhance occupant safety during collisions.