Green light for the future of battery electric buses? Examining the performance of battery electric buses from the operator's and customer's perspective

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COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the lives of Canadians imposing an unprecedented economic stress. Federal, provincial, and municipal governments across Canada are developing recovery plans with investments in public transport (PT), which can also meet sustainability and social inclusion goals. Zero-emission (ZE) PT vehicles, including electric buses (e-buses), are a double win for the climate, effectively lowering emissions through replacing single occupancy vehicles and reducing emissions from diesel fuel. Achieving net-ZE by 2050 will depend not just on the building of new PT systems or adoption of ZE buses, but on understanding use and uptake of these systems. The proposed 5-year program will provide a thorough assessment of whether e-buses are winter ready and develop detailed insight on the performance of an e-bus fleet from operator and customer perspectives, using Edmonton as a case study. I will address four interrelated research objectives. First, I will develop a tool to measure customer perceptions of e-buses in Edmonton. The proposed tool will be designed to link operations data with the customer perception survey (two traditionally distinct datasets), thereby collecting data in a form that has not been done before. Second, I will identify the determinants of trip-level battery depletion to better understand the feasibility of widespread adoption of e-buses in Canada. There are several operational impacts on battery depletion that will be measured, including effects of weather, speed, terrain, use of air conditioning, and passenger load. This project will establish a modeling technique to pair automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger counter (APC) data (used to extract route-level passenger activity, speed, and route logistics) with data on the state of charge and battery use. Third, I will analyze the effect of driver behaviour on trip-level regenerative braking, providing insight on the role of driver habits on battery depletion. It is expected that training drivers in the practice of effective braking regeneration will have benefits on the rider experience while also improving battery mileage. Last, I will test the reliability of battery electric buses during winter weather conditions. AVL/APC will be obtained to develop a dwell time model with the goal of understanding the efficiency and reliability of e-buses in winter conditions, comparing the operations of both diesel and battery electric buses. The proposed research program will: (1) train an interdisciplinary group of HQP (2 PhD, 2 MSc students) as the next generation of highly-skilled transport professionals, (2) will present new methods and tools for PT researchers and practitioners to work at the intersection of PT operations and customer satisfaction, and (3) will inform the design and development of e-buses, positioning both Canadian e-bus manufacturers and Canadian cities to reap the rewards of a growing clean economy.