Multistage planning of electric transit charging facilities under build-operate-transfer model

Careful advanced planning of charging facilities is required to support the successful functioning of the electric transit system. However, transit agencies generally lack sufficient experiences and professional skills to plan and build charging systems. A great way for them is to cooperate with other companies that provide professional charging services. This cooperation is often executed by a build-operate-transfer (BOT) model such that the charging service provider builds and plans the charging system, operates it for several years and then transfers the ownership to the transit agency. This research aims to investigate charging facilities planning for electric transit systems under the BOT model. As the transit electrification is conducted in a gradual manner, we consider the planning under a multistage setting. The problem is modeled as a mixed-integer program. We apply the model into a real-world transit system in a metropolis of China and some meaningful managerial insights are derived