Optimization of Electric Bus Scheduling for Mixed Passenger and Freight Flow in an Urban-Rural Transit System

Abstract

Transport accessibility and urban-rural connectivity are seen as critical aspects of rural economic development. In the transit network, passenger flow between urban-rural corridors demonstrates directional imbalances and low utilization of scarce resources. Freight transportation, on the other hand, lags due to poor geography, high operating costs, and scattered demand. This paper proposes a new mode of public transit that integrates passenger and freight transport, providing a carrier for logistics while compensating for the low utilization of passenger transport. In this mode, each timetabled round trip is divided into one dedicated passenger trip with high demand and one mixed-flow trip with on-demand requests. A space-time-state network is constructed considering the picking-up time window, loading/unloading service time, and electric bus energy replenishment. A mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to optimize the bus schedule that covers the travel demands and the charging requests with minimized travel costs. A Lagrangian relaxation framework with a dynamic programming algorithm and sub-gradient method is presented for problem-solving. The real-life rural-urban transport instance and a simulated network demonstrate the operation of the new mode and validate the efficiency of the proposed method. The innovative concept and the optimization framework are expected to serve as a reference for public administration to alleviate passenger and freight transportation bottlenecks in the urban-rural context.

The Integration of Urban Freight in Public Transportation: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The authors of [19] worked on the bus routing problem and bus trip scheduling with the objective of minimizing cost for the transit user and operator; they proposed a meta-heuristic model. At the strategic level, the authors of [20] proposed a reliable scheduling method to optimize the electric bus schedules and worked on minimizing the operational costs while avoiding transportation interruptions due to energy shortages. While their paper focused on the energy aspect, further study is needed to assess the effects of this method on congestion as well as evaluate the effect on pricing transportation where conflicts arise between on-demand passenger and cargo transportation.…”

A lightweight bus passenger detection model based on YOLOv5

“…In public transportation, the information on bus passenger flow is essential data to allocate transportation routes and fleet schedules in the effective bus management system, which improves the convenience of taking the bus, reducing transportation costs and saving energy [1,2]. In the solution of counting bus passengers, the technology of tracking-by-detection [3,4] through video has been a hot research topic for several years because of its immediateness.…”