Search Results (2)

The transition to fully electric bus (EB) fleets introduces new challenges in coordinating daily operations and managing charging energy needs, while accounting for infrastructure constraints. The paper proposes a three-stage optimization framework that integrates EB scheduling with overnight charging under realistic depot layout constraints. In the first stage, a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) determines the minimum number of EBs with ample batteries and related schedules to complete all timetabled trips. With the fleet size fixed, the second stage minimizes the EB battery capacity by optimizing trip assignments. In the third stage, charging schedules are iteratively optimized for different numbers of chargers to minimize charger power capacity and charging cost, while ensuring each EB is fully recharged before its first trip on the following day. The matrix-shape depot layout imposes spatial and operational constraints that restrict the charging and movement of EBs based on their parking positions, with EBs remaining stationary overnight. The entire process is repeated by incrementing the fleet size until a saturation point is reached, beyond which no further reduction in battery capacity is observed. This results in a Pareto frontier showing trade-offs between required battery capacity, number of chargers, charger power capacity, and charging cost. The proposed method is applied to a real-world airport parking shuttle service, demonstrating its potential to reduce the battery size and charging infrastructure demands while maintaining full operational feasibility. Full article

Scientific support depot location and reasonable spare parts transportation are the keys to improving the support level of complex systems. The current equipment support system has the problems of chaotic warehouse layout and low efficiency of spare parts. The reliability and completeness of spare parts’ historical data are hard to believe. In order to deal with the cognitive uncertainty caused by the asymmetry of data, this paper adopts the uncertainty theory to optimize the depot location and transportation volume. Under the constraints of shortage rate, supply availability, average logistic delay time, and inventory limit, the uncertain chance-constrained model of equipment supporting depot is established. The optimization model is transformed into a deterministic model by using the inverse uncertainty distribution. The genetic algorithm is used to optimize the solution of this model. Finally, the practicability and operability of the model method are verified through the example analysis. Full article