Investigating scheduling of minibus taxis in South Africa's eventual electric paratransit

The predominant mode of public transport in South Africa originates from the informal sector, specifically “paratransit”. Vehicles carry up to 23 passengers and are still propelled by internal combustion engines. We investigate the feasibility of using electric vehicles without negating the loss of opportunities by drivers and owners. We propose that scheduling of the electric vehicles is one important cornerstone towards electrification. We developed a fast-executing heuristic scheduling algorithm that allows for multiple vehicle depots in the transport network; simultaneous electric and internal combustion engine vehicle deployment; determining the number of charging stations; partial charging; and scheduled charging with intermittent electricity supply. The scheduling algorithm achieves the minimum number of vehicles to execute the passenger demand in shorter total distances, outperforming current approaches. The algorithm demonstrated multi-objective optimisation by minimising the vehicles, the number of charging stations, and the average trip delays of a schedule.