Optimal Deployment of Overhead Catenary Charging for Electric Bus Transit Systems

Integrating in-motion charging into battery electric bus (BEB) transit systems offers a promising solution to address challenges associated with stationary charging, including resource limitations, extended charging durations, and higher battery costs. This study develops a generic optimization model integrating overhead catenary charging (OCC) facilities with overnight charging to minimize BEB system costs (capital and operational). Capital costs are reduced by optimizing OCC deployment, BEB battery capacity, and depot charging configurations. Simultaneously, operational costs are minimized by optimizing charging schedules considering electricity time-of-use (ToU) tariffs, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity (tCo2e), and BEB battery degradation costs. Application of our model to a real-world transit network highlights substantial reductions in on-peak hours electricity demand (56%), GHG emissions (13%), and overall charging costs (27%). Furthermore, sensitivity analysis explains the impact of OCC infrastructure costs on the total system cost. However, increasing the charging power of OCC facilities yields notable cost savings (28%).