This paper aims to analyze overall economic and environmental performances of alternative bus powertrains by focusing on U.S. active fleets in different urban contexts. We define a life cycle cost model related to bus technologies by referring to real-world data of 256 transport operators, which provide more than 80% of total vehicle revenue miles produced by urban transit mode across the U.S. in 2019. The proposed method includes some service parameters that significantly affect the supply cost (e.g., service speed, annual mileage), on which we perform scenario and sensitivity analysis. Results show that electric buses are cost-competitive in large cities and metropolises, where urban bus routes are characterized by a high level of congestion, high service frequency, and the highest marginal impact of harmful emissions. In towns and suburban areas, where bus routes are longer and faster, full electric technology still faces both economic and technical barriers.

本文旨在通过关注不同城市环境中的美国现役车队来分析替代公交车动力总成的整体经济和环境性能。我们通过参考 256 家交通运营商的真实数据定义了与公交技术相关的生命周期成本模型，这些运营商提供了 2019 年全美城市交通模式产生的车辆总收入里程的 80% 以上。所提出的方法包括一些显着影响供应成本的服务参数（例如，服务速度、年里程），我们对其进行情景和敏感性分析。结果表明，电动公交车在大城市和大都市中具有成本竞争力，城市公交线路的特点是拥堵程度高、服务频率高以及有害排放的边际影响最高。