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.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a dynamic control method to improve bus schedule adherence under connected bus system. Design/methodology/approach The authors developed a dynamic programming model that optimally schedules the bus operating speed at road sections and multiple signal timing plans at intersections to improve bus schedule adherence. First, the bus route was partitioned into three types of sections: stop, road and intersection. Then, transit agencies can control buses in real time based on all collected information; i.e. control bus operating speed on road sections and adjust the signal timing plans through signal controllers to improve the schedule adherence in connected bus environment. Finally, bus punctuality at the downstream stop and the saturation degree deviations of intersections were selected as the evaluation criteria in optimizing signal control plans and bus speeds jointly. Findings An illustrative case study by using a bus rapid transit line in Jinan city was performed to verify the proposed model. It revealed that based on the proposed strategy, the objective value could be reduced by 73.7%, which indicated that the punctuality was highly improved but not to incur excessive congestion for other vehicular traffic. Originality/value In this paper, the authors applied speed guidance and the adjustment of the signal control plans for multiple cycles in advance to improve the scheduled stability; furthermore, the proposed control strategy can reduce the effect on private traffics to the utmost extend.

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