Towards an Energy Efficient Solution for Bike-Sharing Rebalancing Problems: A Battery Electric Vehicle Scenario

A free-float bike-sharing system faces various operational challenges to maintain good service quality while optimizing the operational cost. The primary problems include the fulfillment of the users demand at all stations, and the replacement of faulty bikes presented in the system. This study focuses on a free-float bike-sharing system rebalancing problem (FFBP) with faulty bikes using battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The target inventory of bikes at each station is obtained while minimizing the total traveling time through the presented formulation. Using CPLEX solver, the model is demonstrated through numerical experiments considering the various vehicle and battery capacities, and a cost-benefit analysis is performed for BEV and conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) while taking the BEV manufacturing and indirect emission into account. The results show that the annual cost incurred on an ICEV is 56.9% more as compared to the cost of using an equivalent BEV. Since BEVs consume less energy than conventional ICEVs, the use of BEVs for rebalancing the bike-sharing systems results in significant energy savings for an urban transport network. Moreover, the life cycle emissions of an ICEV are 48.3% more as compared to an equivalent BEV. Furthermore, the operational cost of a BEV significantly reduces with the increase in battery capacity.