A Development of Optimal Design and Operation Algorithm for Battery-Powered Electric City Tour Bus System

Abstract

After overcoming COVID-19, the tourism demand around the world is on the rise again. At the same time, the interest in eco-friendliness is growing again, and efforts are being made to build an eco-friendly tourism ecosystem. In this study, assuming that a battery-powered electric city tour bus is adopted instead of an existing internal combustion engine city tour bus, we tried to develop optimal design and operation algorithms for battery-powered electric city tour bus systems. The developed algorithm pursues the maximization of the profit, which is calculated through the ticket price paid by tourists using the city tour bus and the overall cost of the electric city tour bus system. In addition, the decision variables of the algorithm are the daily number and interval of operations of the electric city tour bus, which are related to the tourism demand, the battery capacity of the electric city tour bus, and whether a pantograph-type wireless charger is installed or not at the bus stop. The operations research method is used to develop the design algorithm, and numerical examples are derived as the result of the optimal design to verify the proposed algorithm by referring to the operating situation of the Blue Trolley Line in Oahu, Hawai’i. As a result, it is found that profit maximization can be achieved by changes in the daily number and interval of operations on designated routes.