Novel C-ITS support for electric buses with opportunity charging

Electric buses with opportunity (on-route) charging are one of the emerging types of “clean” buses. However, the technology brings new challenges as battery-related requirements might interfere with the revenue service - operator's primary concern. The emerging Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) paradigm holds promise to provide an effective support to e-bus based operations and replace older ITS methods designed for buses with internal combustion engines. In this paper we demonstrate how charging operations can be supported with a novel type of Green Light Optimal Dwell Time Advisory (GLODTA) system dedicated to electric buses. It not only can support on-route battery charging so that charging operations are integrated into schedule constraints but it can also replace existing holding strategies used to regulate punctuality of bus services. A simulations-based analysis shows that system performance is positively correlated with maximum additional dwell time available to a bus and negatively correlated with cycle length of traffic signals.