The efficiency of electric bus shuttle services in UTM campus: a pilot study

Abstract

Malaysian Green Technology Corporation, an organization under the purview of the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA) has announced the Green Technology Master Plan Malaysia 2017-2030 on October 2017 at the International Greentech and Eco Products Exhibition and Conference Malaysia 2017 (IGEM 2017). One of the initiatives identified under the Green Mobility pillar is Low Carbon Campus which include the deployment of electric-powered road transportation. Following to this, COMOS and UTM have deployed a pilot program UNiBUS, the first 100% electric bus in-campus. This paper presents the assessment of the related efficiencies of the electric bus shuttle services that was conducted within UTM campus in Skudai, Johor. Actual driving measurement was conducted using telematics equipped on the electric bus, collecting the GPS coordinate and vehicle speed data from the actual bus services on the existing scheduled routes over the period of two months. The collected data was also correlated with the charging events throughout the pilot study. This study shows that rapid acceleration consumes highest energy from the battery pack in which depleting he energy stored at a relatively higher rate. Therefore, the total distance travel at each route may not be the best representation to gauge the energy utilization of the battery pack. A detail energy analysis from the vehicle dynamics is required to accurately predict the amount of energy used. Although the analysis has been conducted without complete package of data, the predicted efficiency matches relatively well at some distance of the travel.