Projekt CACTUS
The CACTUS project aimed to develop models and methods for the assessment and optimization of charging of electric buses for their rational implementation in public transport companies. The main task of the Silesian University of Technology research team was to model the transport system operated by electric buses, taking into account the economic aspect of the problem.
Funded by National Centre for Research and Development within ERANET Electromobility+, the research work with acronym CACTUS (Models and Methods for Assessment and Optimization of Electric Bus Charging) was implemented in 2012-2015, in cooperation with two research partners from Germany: Fraunhofer IML Institute from Dortmund and Institute for Automation and Communication from Magdeburg. The immediate goal of the CACTUS project was to create a set of principles to enable the implementation of electric buses in public transport. The municipal transport companies participating in the project (HVB, MVB, PVGS - Germany and the Municipal Transport Company in Sosnowiec) provided data on the actual transport tasks (timetables, vehicle circuits, etc.). On this basis, the parameters of the target infrastructure were determined, such as the location of battery charging points, the number of rolling stock units required to implement the system, the costs of implementing the new system etc. This allowed answering on which routes the system will be possible to implement with the current parameters imposed by the timetable, taking into account technical and economic constraints. In the framework of the economic part of the CACTUS project, a model was built to facilitate the global analysis of the conversion of the fleet of traditional buses to electric from the point of view of the company. The main objective of the Silesian University of Technology in the CACTUS Project was to develop a sub-model of the economic, in general, traffic model of public transport, in which electric buses are usedIt takes into account primarily the cost of purchase and operation of vehicles and the cost of purchase and maintenance of the associated infrastructure (including charging infrastructure).
