Electrical Bus Performance Modeling for Urban Environments

Abstract

Urban and suburban centers rely upon their transportation infrastructure for the well-being of their population, assuring their mobility. This mobility can be directly related to a sustainable urban development, due to the economic, social and environmental impacts that it has over the population. 1. Many analyses on the social, economic and environmental costs and impacts of urban expansion have concentrated on the "invasive" nature of the automobile, consequence of their high flexibility on providing access to the increasingly dispersed urban functions. There is a persuasive picture in the urban lifestyle mindset in which the car is an essential element, thus contributing towards increase of traffic congestion and mobility reduction 2. These factors lead to an increasingly high amount of circulating cars, as expressed in Figure 1 for the European Union, which is detrimental to a sustainable urban development. Based on what was presented, public transportation represents a solution for both a sustainable urban development and a reduction of traffic congestion, as it means a decrease on the number of circulating cars, once those people change of attitude will make them leave their cars at home. This change of attitude is somehow expected. People are becoming more environmentally aware and providing a clean mean of public transportation will persuade people to use it more often and thus contributing to an overall traffic reduction and consequently to a cleaner environment within cities and an overall energy consumption reduction.

Driver Attitude and Its Influence on the Energy Waste of Electric Buses

“…The Simulink model calculates the torque needed to operate the vehicle at each moment, considering aerodynamic drag, tire rolling resistance, climbing grade and vehicle inertia effects [7]. The required total torque needed to drive the wheels at each moment at a given speed is converted to power, and further converted to energy, which is the energy required to perform the route designed at SUMO [8], [9].…”

“…Basically, the parameter used to differentiate the risk taking driver from the regular one is the acceleration rate, either on acceleration episodes or negative braking, behaviors that do not characterize a smooth drive [6]. Risk-taking drivers have a higher acceleration rate in both cases, and this parameter is crucial for the calculations performed on Simulink [7]. The route takes into consideration the traffic lights, the bus stops and the interaction with other vehicles, in order to have more realistic results.…”