Research presentation at INFORMS 2017

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) arranged this year's annual meeting in Houston, TX. I presented one of our works in the technical session "Operations Research for Enhancement in Public Transportation". The presentation was titled "Bus Fleet Turnover Strategies to Optimize Life Cycle Cost and Carbon Emission Reductions". This has been the focus of our research for the past few months.

Connecticut Department of Transportation, in collaboration with Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering have taken up a project to study strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission by CT buses. As a part of the UCONN study group, we are looking at the quantitative measures of this project. The major focus of the earlier parts of the project was to select suitable alternatives to diesel buses. Battery electric buses (BEB) turned out to be most cost competitive in terms of $/Metric Ton CO2 equivalent reduction. The second most competitive one was Hybrid buses. For this particular presentation we were trying to answer three simple questions.

How many buses of which technology to purchase?

When to purchase?

When to salvage?

These questions are in turns, subject to the minimization of life cycle cost of owning and operating the bus fleet and maximization of GHG reduction. In order to answer all of these questions simultaneously, we need to run an optimization model. This model gives the least expensive solutions to the questions for desired set of outcomes. For example, for 100% Battery electric conversion within 2030, the optimized vehicle purchasing and salvaging schedule for CTDOT is shown below.

The model also gives most optimized percenatge of fleet replacement. For example instead of 100%, if CTDOT replaces 96% of its fleet to battery electric, it can save around 23 million dollars. This model is transferable to any transit agencies working towards a new technology adoption and wishing to optimize their fleet replacement schedule . The presentation received very positive feedback from the audience and the panel.

There are scope for future improvements in the work. Currently the work is under progress for publication.

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