Multi-Depot Electric Bus Scheduling Considering Operational Constraint and Partial Charging: A Case Study in Shenzhen, China

Abstract

Electric buses (e-buses) demonstrate great potential in improving urban air quality thanks to zero tailpipe emissions and thus being increasingly introduced to the public transportation systems. In the transit operation planning, a common requirement is that long-distance non-service travel of the buses among bus terminals should be avoided in the schedule as it is not cost-effective. In addition, e-buses should begin and end a day of operation at their base depots. Based on the unique route configurations in Shenzhen, the above two requirements add further constraint to the form of feasible schedules and make the e-bus scheduling problem more difficult. We call these two requirements the vehicle relocation constraint. This paper addresses a multi-depot e-bus scheduling problem considering the vehicle relocation constraint and partial charging. A mixed integer programming model is formulated with the aim to minimize the operational cost. A Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) heuristic is devised with novel destroy-and-repair operators to tackle the vehicle relocation constraint. Numerical experiments are conducted based on multi-route operation cases in Shenzhen to verify the model and effectiveness of the LNS heuristic. A few insights are derived on the decision of battery capacity, charging rate and deployment of the charging infrastructure.

The Routing Problem for Electric Truck with Partial Nonlinear Charging and Battery Swapping

“…Consequently, this study distinguishes itself from the existing literature by integrating the EVRP with multiple charging options and nonlinear charging functions. [23] CPLEX -Lee (2021) [29] Exact * Karakatič (2021) [30] Heuristic -Sayarshad and Mahmoodian (2021) [34] Exact -Lam et al (2022) [20] Exact * Cataldo-Díaz et al (2022) [21] Gurobi * Jiang et al (2022) [24] Heuristic 0.12 Akbay et al (2023) [25] Heuristic * Amiri et al (2023) [27] Heuristic -This study Heuristic 0.61…”

“…Park et al [23] adopted partial charging in an EVRP with heterogeneous vehicles, and developed a mathematical formulation to minimize the total distance traveled by the vehicles. Jiang et al [24] considered partial charging for a multi-depot e-bus scheduling problem with vehicle relocation constraints. They enhanced a Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) heuristic with novel destroy-and-repair operators to tackle the problem.…”

Optimization of Electric Bus Scheduling Considering Charging Station Resource Constraints

“…Existing studies on electric buses mainly focus on the planning of charging infrastructure (16)(17)(18)(19)(20), the evaluation of lifecycle costs (21,22), and the fleet transition problem (23). As far as the VSP of electric buses is concerned, studies have mainly looked at vehicle scheduling and charging strategies (24)(25)(26)(27). The VSP deals with the allocation of task trips to vehicles.…”

China’s public transport in its present and future

“…In [5], data on how COVID-19 has changed life, as well as travel, in cities is considered. In [6], the impact of electric buses on improving urban air quality is examined. And a study [7] shows that electric mobility has led to a reduction in carbon emissions.…”

“…In the article "Multi-depot Electric Bus Scheduling Considering Operational Constraint and Partial Charging: A Case Study in Shenzhen, China", Jiang M. and Zhang Y. note that "Electric buses (e-buses) demonstrate great potential in improving urban air quality thanks to zero tailpipe emissions and thus being increasingly introduced to the public transportation systems" [6]. According to statistics from Bloomberg, the use of electric buses has reduced diesel fuel consumption in the People's Republic of China by 41 million litres per day.…”