Assessing the impact of cornering losses on the energy consumption of electric city buses

In view of the increasing electrification of public city transport, an accurate energy consumption prediction for Battery Electric Buses (BEBs) is essential. Conventional prediction algorithms do not consider energy losses that occur during turning of the vehicle. This is especially relevant for electric city buses, which have a limited battery capacity and often drive curvy routes.In this paper, the additional energy consumption during steering of a BEB is modeled, measured, and assessed. A nonlinear steady-state cornering model is developed to establish the additional energy losses during cornering. The model includes large steer angles, load transfer, and a Magic Formula tire model. Model results show that both cornering resistance and tire scrub of the rear tires cause additional energy losses during cornering, depending on the corner radius and vehicle velocity.The energy consumption model is validated with full scale vehicle tests and shows an average deviation of 0.8 kW compared to the measurements. Analysis of recorded real-world bus routes reveals that on average these effects constitute 3.1% of the total powertrain energy. The effect is even more significant for routes crossing city centers, reaching values up to 5.8%. In these cases, cornering losses can be significant and should not be neglected in an accurate energy consumption prediction.     

A network level connectivity robustness measure for connected vehicle environments

This study introduces a new CONnectivity ROBustness model (CONROB) to assess vehicle-to-vehicle communication in connected vehicle (CV) environments. CONROB is based on Newton’s universal law of gravitation and accounts for multiple factors affecting the connectivity in CV environments such as market penetration, wireless transmission range, spatial distribution of vehicles relative to each other, the spatial propagation of the wireless signal, and traffic density. The proposed methodology for the connectivity robustness calculation in CONROB accounts for the Link Expiration Time (LET) and the Route Expiration Time (RET) that are reflected in the stability of links between each two adjacent vehicles and the expiration time of communication routes between vehicles. Using a 117 sq-km (45-square mile) network in Washington County, located west of Portland city, Oregon, a microscopic simulation model (VISSIM) was built to verify CONROB model. A total of 45 scenarios were simulated for different traffic densities generated from five different traffic demand levels, three levels of market penetration (5%, 15%, and 25%), and three transmission range values [76 (250), 152 (500), and 305 (1000) m (ft)]. The simulation results show that the overall robustness increases as the market penetration increases, given the same transmission range, and relative traffic density. Similarly, the overall connectivity robustness increases as the relative traffic density increases for the same market penetration. More so, the connectivity robustness becomes more sensitive to the relative traffic density at higher values of transmission range and market penetration. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to show the significant effect of relative traffic density, transmission range, and market penetration on the robustness measure. The results of the study provide an evidence of the ability of the model to capture the effect of the different factors on the connectivity between vehicles, which provides a viable tool for assessing CV environments.     

Home-based telecommuting and intra-household interactions in work and non-work travel: A seemingly unrelated censored regression approach

Although telecommuting has become a popular option as a new mode of working, no theoretical or empirical consensus has been reached on its potential for substituting or generating travel. This study aims to evaluate the impact of a household head’s telecommuting on household travel while controlling for the interdependence within a household and across travel purposes, by applying seemingly unrelated censored regression models to data from the 2006 Household Travel Survey in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. In terms of vehicle kilometers traveled, the analysis shows that telecommuters’ non-commute and non-work trips as well as his/her household members’ non-work trips are greater than those of non-telecommuters and their household members’, whereas telecommuting partially reduces commuting trips. However, an analysis stratified by household type reveals that the difference for household members is significant only in households with less than one vehicle per employed member: in such households (with insufficient vehicles available), the vehicle otherwise used for mandatory travel, such as for the household head’s commute, can be used for non-commute purposes or by other household members if the household head does not use it for commuting. This implies that, when vehicle travel budgets of a given household are limited, this compensatory travel mechanism can make optimum use of limited resources (i.e., vehicles), but offsets the travel-substituting effect of telecommuting. Accordingly, to more precisely estimate the impact of telecommuting-promotion policies and apply them as part of travel demand management strategies, their counteracting effects among household members should be considered.     

Developments of CO2-emissions and costs for small electric and combustion engine vehicles in Germany

Electric vehicles have the potential to lower emissions in the mobility sector, but especially high costs might hinder their market development. This paper aims to access environmental and economic impacts and potentials by comparing CO₂-emissions and costs of small vehicles. Considering actual data it is analysed, if and under which conditions electric vehicles are financially competitive for private consumers and under which conditions emissions can be saved. For this, a multiple-stage approach is focusing on (1) emissions during production and operation, (2) private costs and (3) external costs of emissions. A model of total cost of ownership is applied for the analysis of private and external costs.Results show that emissions of electric vehicles exceed emissions of combustion engine vehicles in the production phase, but electric vehicles cause fewer emissions during operation. Total emissions can be saved by electric vehicles even with low annual driving distances (2500–5500 km/a today). Results highly depend on the form of electricity production.Today, private costs of electric vehicles exceed the costs of combustion engine vehicles. Due to cost decreases electric vehicles can gain financial advantages in the future. External costs are high, especially for combustion engine vehicles (up to 15% of private costs), but in none of the considered cases high enough to give electric vehicles a financial advantage today. This picture will change in the future.     

Stochastic eco-routing in a signalized traffic network

In this paper, an eco-routing algorithm is developed for vehicles in a signalized traffic network. The proposed method incorporates a microscopic vehicle emission model into a Markov decision process (MDP). Instead of using GPS-based vehicle trajectory data, which are used by many existing eco-routing algorithm, high resolution traffic data including vehicle arrival and signal status information are used as primary inputs. The proposed method can work with any microscopic vehicle model that uses vehicle trajectories as inputs and gives related emission rates as outputs. Furthermore, a constrained eco-routing problem is proposed to deal with the situation where multiple costs present. This is done by transferring the original MDP based formulation to a linear programming formulation. Besides the primary cost, additional costs are considered as constraints. Two numerical examples are given using the field data obtained from City of Pasadena, California, USA. The eco-routing algorithm for single objective is compared against the traditional shortest path algorithm, Dijkstra’s algorithm. Average reductions of CO emission around 20% are observed.     

铁路槽罐车智能监测系统的设计

针对铁路槽罐车运输过程中仍需企业员工随车押运,存在无法准确掌握货物状态、出现紧急情况不能发现、随车押运条件艰苦等诸多问题,提出了铁路槽罐车智能监测系统,实现了列车押运的自动化、无人化、远程化,使传统押运模式得到极大改善.     

基于BIM技术的铁路客车车辆段设计研究

近年来,随着BIM技术在铁路行业的逐步普及,铁路工程的信息化程度要求也越来越高。在车辆段建设过程中,传统的二维图纸设计无法实现工程项目设计、施工、运用的信息共享,也不能满足设计阶段多专业的协调需求。如何利用BIM技术实现设计信息的无损传递,提高车辆段设计水平和信息化水平是业内亟待解决的问题。为解决上述问题,依托西安站改客车段项目,对车辆段BIM设计软件解决方案和实施流程进行探索,验证车辆段BIM设计流程,完成车辆段BIM模型的建立并对其进行碰撞检查、排烟分析、日照模拟、工筹策划等应用拓展,结合BIM实践经验,优化提高铁路车辆段的设计手段。     

城市物流无人机起降点布局规划研究

针对城市物流无人机起降点布局规划问题，考虑不同级别的物流无人机起降点，构建以总经济成本最小和客户满意度最高为目标，以禁飞区、无人机性能、容需匹配等为约束的整数规划模型。设计人类学习优化算法(HLO)，引入随机学习算子、个体学习算子和社会学习算子。在此基础上，基于真实地理信息数据和物流数据设计仿真实验，验证模型与算法有效性。实验结果表明，所建模型可以实现起降点的合理布局规划，适用于大规模资源配置，具备有效性；人类学习优化算法较遗传算法求解精度与收敛速度更优，表现出较佳性能。参数分析表明，基于该仿真环境的最优经济成本权重和客户满意度权重设置为0.4和0.6，最佳算法学习概率参数组合为5/n和 (0.8+2/n)。据此可对城市物流无人机起降点布局规划提供决策依据。     

标准地铁列车车体技术条件研究

地铁车辆结构形式和功能配置的多样化,给地铁列车互联互通带来一定困难.针对目前我国地铁车辆技术规格书要求的多样性开展调研分析.根据调研结果,修改完善当前地铁车辆技术条件,编制系列化中国标准地铁列车4种车型技术规格书.分析技术规格书中车体技术条件与既有地铁列车执行标准及规范的主要差异,为标准化地铁列车研制项目技术创新成果的...     

The Vehicle Routing Problem: The Case of the Hong Kong Postal Service

Abstract

With the growth in population and development of business activities in Hong Kong, the range and level of services provided by Hongkong Post have multiplied. However, the schedule of its postal vehicles, including mail collection and delivery, is still constructed manually on a daily basis, based on the experience of staff and transportation reviews. In this paper, the problem of scheduling a set of n collection points (District Post Offices) from a depot (General Post Office) in Hong Kong Island is addressed. The objectives pursued are the maximization of resource utilization and minimization of operation costs. In other words, the variable cost is expected to be reduced. To achieve these goals, an integer linear programming (IP) model of the vehicle routing problem (VRP) is developed in an effort to obtain optimal solutions. As the model involves computational complexity, a commercial software package CPLEX is used to solve the problems efficiently. The results show that the proposed model can produce optimal vehicle routes and schedules.