Life-Cycle analysis of economic and environmental effects for electric bus transit systems

Electric buses play a crucial role in reducing the carbon footprint. This study evaluates the life cycle costs (LCCs) and environmental impacts of three e-bus transit systems: stationary charging, battery swapping, and dynamic wireless charging. A mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problem is formulated to determine the optimal design parameters for the charging infrastructure, bus fleet size, and battery capacity for each e-bus transit system considering battery degradation. Taking Guangzhou's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system as an example, a sensitivity analysis of the optimized solution is conducted. The LCC analysis framework is extended to BRT systems in 38 cities globally. The results indicate the superiority of battery swapping in most cases, while stationary charging and dynamic wireless charging are more competitive in cases with long circuit lengths and high service frequencies. Dynamic wireless charging becomes the best option when charging infrastructure is shared with other bus lines or private cars.