Optimization of Electric Bus Fleet and Infrastructure in Public Transport

Abstract

Cities today use the majority of energy produced and are a significant cause to Global warming and emissions of greenhouse gases. The majority of Emissions of co2 are generated from urban areas, with transportation and building development being the most significant drivers. The transport sector in India is the third largest emitter of CO2, with road transport accounting for the majority of emission, public transport is one of the major sectors in transportation sector in which there is a chance to reduce emission factors by introducing electric vehicles into its fleet, Electric vehicles appear to play an essential role in the solution of this topic once it is described as having zero exhaust gas emissions. Due to the constraints of electric bus technologies, further changes to the current bus transportation planning difficulties are required. Electric Mobility in Public Transport is a new buzz word. State Transport Undertakings are on the way of acquiring a sizable fleet of E-buses under government incentives. However, these new genres of the vehicle are quite different than conventional ICE vehicles. They have limited range, need substantial recharging time and are costlier to acquire but are affordable to operate. Different efforts are made for the fleet replacing of E-buses in India. To address the need, thesis aims to devise Infrastructure and optimize fleet for E-buses for APSRTC. The thesis will consider all popular charging strategies and uses a best optimization for E-bus fleet replacement, which makes the work distinctive in terms of scope and accuracy. Initially, different parameters which would affect the electric bus optimization, charging infrastructure are identified, based on these parameters’ current scenario of existing public transport demand levels problems are identified and then best possible EV technology options that are appropriate to the study area are identified by considering technical details in terms of Battery Capacity, Charger Power and Bus efficiency will be worked out for each charging strategy. For Battery Swapping station a non-conventional way of operation promising lower battery requirements will be developed and evaluated. Later, case depot and case routes are selected for E-bus Operation. The ability of depot to accommodate E-buses along with required infrastructure and serviceability of route considering the range of E-buses as prime criteria for selection. Later different E-bus fleet replacement Scenarios with different vehicle specifications that are locally available in India will be evaluated.