Bus-to-route and route-to-bus approaches in hybrid electric buses fleet for battery lifetime extension

The aim of this paper is to propose a methodology for managing the battery lifetime of a whole fleet with the aim to improve the total cost of ownership of hybrid electric buses. This approach has been addressed from two points of view the bus-to-route and route-to-bus approaches. The bus-to-route optimization is focused on the energy management strategy generation of each bus of the fleet. A techno-economic, route energetic evaluation and battery aging analysis of the fleet have been performed. From the outcome of this analysis, the buses have been grouped, according the state of health of each bus. Based on the analysis and classification, the route-to-bus approach is applied. This technique lies on both, a re-evaluation of the energy management system and/or the re-organization of the buses according to the state of health of each bus. Increases of BT lifetimes up to 10.7% are obtained with the proposed approach.