A multi-criteria operational planning for battery electric buses with fuzzy TOPSIS approach

Globally, battery electric buses (BEBs) have emerged as a promising green transport to alleviate worldwide environmental problems and fossil oil dependency issues. Despite the environmental benefit, costly expenditure may restrain the adoption of BEBs. Thus, both environmental and economic factors, along with the supply-demand aspects, should be considered explicitly when planning EB operations. Correspondingly, this study proposes a viable multi-criteria operational planning for BEBs with the aid of the Fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) approach by integrating environmental (energy consumption, emission) and economic (cost) factors as well as the supply and demand aspects explicitly in a systematic unified planning framework. By incorporating the probable closeness coefficient inevitably in place, the proposed operational planning approach is effective not only in determining desirable BEB operating routes but also in devising a suitable heterogeneous BEB fleet realistically under uncertainty. Several insightful findings are revealed from scenario-based analysis: (1) BEB operations with desired operating routes and heterogeneous fleet are greatly driven by bus type/size, load factor, charging method, environmental and economic concerns; (2) influential factors' weightages would impact BEB operational planning to a certain extent; (3) load factor increment and fast charging strategy are beneficial to improve the BEB performance; (4) the usage of BEBs yields a promising environmental/economic benefit in comparison to conventional buses operations. Theoretically and practically, this study is useful in providing actionable decisions to bus operators in providing a feasible BEB operating network while assuring a win-win situation between the stakeholders and the environment.