  The rapid adoption of electric buses by transit agencies around the world is
leading to new challenges in the planning and operation of bus networks. In
particular, the limited driving range of electric vehicles imposes operational
constraints such as the need to charge buses during service. Research on this
topic has mostly focused on the strategic and tactical planning aspects until
now, and very little work has been done on the real-time operational aspect. To
remedy this, we propose integrating the charging scheduling problem with a
real-time speed control strategy in this paper. The control problem is
formulated as a mixed-integer linear program and solved to optimality with the
branch-and-bound method. Simulations are carried out by repeatedly solving the
control problem in a receding horizon fashion over a full day of operation. The
results show that the proposed controller manages to anticipate and avoid
potential conflicts where the charging demand exceeds the charger capacity.
This feature makes the controller achieve lower operational costs, both in
terms of service regularity and energy consumption, compared to a standard
first-come, first-served charging scheme.
