Integrated transit route network design and infrastructure planning for on-line electric vehicles

The emergence of electromobility along with recent developments in wireless power transfer (WPT) technology offer potentials to improve the carbon footprint of bus transport, while offering quality services. Indeed, the deployment of fast charging stations and dynamic charging roadway segments (lanes) can ensure fast energy transmission to electricity-powered buses, mitigating existing energy-related concerns and limitations. Existing models for public transport network design cannot adequately capture the dependence between electric vehicle charging infrastructure requirements and route operational characteristics. In this context, this paper investigates the combined Transit Route Network Design and Charging Infrastructure Location Problem and proposes a bi-level formulation to handle both planning stages. At the upper level, candidate route sets are generated and evaluated, while at the lower-level wireless charging infrastructures are optimally deployed. A multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MO-PSO) algorithm embedded with an integer programming solver is employed to handle the complexity of the problem and the conflicting design objectives related to passengers and operators. The resulting model is applied to an established benchmark network to assess the tradeoffs arising between user-oriented and operator-oriented solutions and highlight the complex decision process associated with the deployment of electric public transport networks.