Charging Infrastructure and Schedule Planning for a Public Transit Network with a Mixed Fleet of Electric and Diesel Buses

Abstract

Promoting battery electric buses (BEBs) can reduce fuel consumption and air pollution from the transit system. A complete transition from the current diesel fleet to BEBs is costly and time-consuming. Thus, the intermediate solution is a combination of diesel, hybrid, and BEBs. Therefore, a planning framework is required that simultaneously tackles three contiguous aspects of transit electrification and their interconnections, namely charging infrastructure, fleet configuration, and scheduling. Accordingly, this study considers a mixed fleet of diesel and BEBs. It aims to concurrently find (i) the optimal location and capacity of charging infrastructure, considering micro-grid specifications, the impact of distributed energy resources, and time-of-use electricity rates and (ii) optimum operation and refueling strategies. Another objective of this study is to capture the impacts of adverse weather conditions on transit electrification. A mixed-integer problem is proposed and solved using a metaheuristic algorithm based on simulated annealing to minimize system costs, including infrastructure, fleet, and operation costs. A subnetwork of transit in Worcester, Massachusetts, is selected as a case study, including three routes, five candidate charging locations, and three bus types. Findings suggest that BEBs can operate and serve the passenger demand with sufficient charging infrastructure. Sensitivity analyses show that even though high-power chargers are more expensive per piece, they reduce the overall cost as fewer chargers are required. The cost rises for chargers with power of 350 kW or more. It is worth noting that the benefits of BEBs are more significant in smaller buses and are heavily affected by adverse weather conditions.