Electrification of a citywide bus network: A data-driven micro-simulation approach

This paper developed a data-driven micro-simulation optimization model to deploy charging infrastructure for a large-scale electric bus network, considering both traditional charging posts and wireless charging lanes (WCLs). The optimization model has two objectives: 1) minimize the total system cost and 2) maximize the level of service. We used New York City as the study area, and one-day GPS trajectories of 3,133 buses were analyzed to develop the micro-simulation approach, so as to represent the bus operation well. The results showed that the scenario with both charging posts and WCLs deployed had a significantly higher level of service (with its total delay time being 48.11% shorter), more energy saved and fewer emissions than the scenario with only charging posts deployed, though its total cost was 0.76% higher. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis results show that the parameters associated with electric buses and charging facilities could heavily influence the outputs of interest.