Affiliation:
1. Hunan Key Laboratory of Smart Roadway and Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha 410114, China
2. School of Transportation Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing 400074, China
Abstract
Existing studies on electric bus (EB) scheduling mainly focus on the arrangement of bus charging at the bus terminals, which may lead to inflexible charging plans, high scheduling costs, and low utilization of electricity energy. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a dynamic bus replacement strategy. When the power of an in-service EB is insufficient, a standby EB stationed at nearby charging stations is dispatched in advance to replace this in-service EB at a designated bus stop. Passengers then transfer to the standby bus to complete their journey. The replaced bus proceeds to the charging station and transitions into a “standby bus” status after recharging. A mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model is established to determine the dispatching plan for both standby and in-service EBs while also designing optimal charging schemes (i.e., the charging time, location, and the amount of charged power) for electric bus systems. Additionally, this study also incorporates the strategy of time-of-use electricity prices to mitigate the adverse impact on the power grid. The proposed model is linearized to the mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model and efficiently solved by commercial solvers (e.g., GUROBI). The case study demonstrates that EBs with different energy levels can be dynamically assigned to different bus lines using bus replacement strategies, resulting in reduced electricity costs for EB systems without compromising on scheduling efficiency.
Funder
National Natural Science Foundation of China
The Changsha Science and Technology Plan Project Funding
Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province
Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project
Science and Technology Innovation Key R&D Program of Chongging