A Simulated Annealing Approach to the Scheduling of Battery-Electric Bus Charging

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work takes a very interesting approach to the ongoing electric transition in transportation for the recharging management.

I would suggest some revisions to improve the quality of the work:

- The literature review is present in the introduction, but it is not sufficient. I would suggest to use a separate section for it, showing how the problem has been approached so far and highlighting the differences from how it will be approached in this paper;

- In Section 2 from 107 to 124 consider using formulae to make the work easier to read;

- Instead of Table 1 consider to use a Nomenclature section with the quantities in the table;

- Consider the introduction of a flow-chart to provide a clear representation of the methodology;

- Try to make a shorter caption for Figure 2. It is preferrable to describe teh figure in the text;

- Insert images of the results in the results Section. The conclusions highlight all the steps taken during the processing of the work, providing the most important results. More detailed results should be represented and discussed in the results section;

- The limitations of the method used are not clearly explained and highlighted in the work. Please add them.

 

Author Response

Response To Reviewers
Alexander Brown
July 30, 2024
Thank you for taking the time to thoroughly review our manuscript and provide us the chance to submit
a revised version. The time and effort dedicated in providing this insightful feedback has contributed
greatly to the quality of this work. We have addressed all the suggestions made by the reviewers. Edits are
represented by the blue text embedded within the manuscript. Below is a point-by-point response to the
reviewers comments are presented. Relevant sections are mentioned when applicable to assist in searching
for the associated changes.

Reviewer’s Comments to the Authors
• The work takes a very interesting approach to the ongoing electric transition in transportation for
the recharging management.

Thank you! The points given were of great help in improving our document.

• The literature review is present in the introduction, but it is not sufficient. I would suggest to use
a separate section for it, showing how the problem has been approached so far and highlighting the
differences from how it will be approached in this paper;

Thank you for this thought. While we agree that taking more time to highlight key differences
between existing methods improves the clarity of the paper’s contribution, we believe that
including a separate section is unnecessary and can be done succinctly within the introduction.
We have also further bolstered the literature by including two more pieces of literature and
further refined the citations to include literature in all the relevant locations.
• In Section 2 from 107 to 124 consider using formulae to make the work easier to read;
We again appreciate your comment. After reviewing over various papers within the field, it
seems that the method in which that we have presented the scenario is consistent with that of
other literature.

• Instead of Table 1 consider to use a Nomenclature section with the quantities in the table;

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have taken the time to implement a nomenclature section with the parameters and units specified when relevant.

• Consider the introduction of a flow-chart to provide a clear representation of the methodology;

We appreciate the thought taken to improve the clarity of our paper. While a flow chart could
be beneficial, we feel it would distract from / repeat Algorithm 8 and have chosen instead to
refer the reader to Algorithm 8.

• Try to make a shorter caption for Figure 2. It is preferrable to describe teh figure in the text;
We appreciate the attention taken while reviewing our manuscript. We have applied the detailed description of the figure within the body of the text and reduced the caption to a short
description of what the figure represents.

 • Insert images of the results in the results Section. The conclusions highlight all the steps taken during the processing of the work, providing the most important results. More detailed results should be represented and discussed in the results section;

Thank you for the insightful observation. We have moved the figures within to results section
and have included discussion to Figure 6. We believe, as far as the scope of the work is concerned,
that all the relevant points have been addressed.

• The limitations of the method used are not clearly explained and highlighted in the work. Please add
them.

Thank you for this interesting point. We have included some clarity in the introduction by
incorporating the word “static” to emphasize that the schedule being generated is not dynamic
(i.e. not real time). Furthermore, future interests related to this work are included in the
conclusion to assist in demonstrating where this algorithm’s limitation lie.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper addresses the important practical problem of electric bus scheduling, proposing a solution using the Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm, which has strong practical value. The paper structure is clear, with well-organized chapters including problem statement, input parameters and decision variables, SA algorithm introduction, pseudocode, and example problems. The choice of SA algorithm to solve the scheduling problem is appropriate, and specific example problems are provided to verify the method's effectiveness. The references are also quite comprehensive, covering multiple relevant studies in the field.

However, there is room for further improvement in the paper. It is suggested to appropriately shorten the paper length and highlight key content. Meanwhile, the applicability of this scheduling algorithm in actual vehicle operations could be further analyzed in combination with current trajectory tracking methods, which would enhance the practical value of the paper. Additionally, it is recommended to add comparative analysis with other scheduling algorithms to highlight the advantages of this method. The authors may consider referring to the following literature to enhance the real-time performance and adaptability of the algorithm: the parameter-adaptive non-model state estimation method combining attention mechanism and LSTM proposed by Jin et al. (2024), as well as related research in the literature doi: 10.1109/TAC.2021.3106861 and doi: 10.1109/TCE.2023.3331770. These references may help improve the real-time performance and robustness of the algorithm.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I would be grateful if you could provide a single piece of constructive feedback regarding the grammatical structure, lexical choices, and overall linguistic composition of the aforementioned scholarly work.

Author Response

Response To Reviewers
Alexander Brown
July 30, 2024
Thank you for taking the time to thoroughly review our manuscript and provide us the chance to submit
a revised version. The time and effort dedicated in providing this insightful feedback has contributed
greatly to the quality of this work. We have addressed all the suggestions made by the reviewers. Edits are
represented by the blue text embedded within the manuscript. Below is a point-by-point response to the
reviewers comments are presented. Relevant sections are mentioned when applicable to assist in searching
for the associated changes.

 

Reviewer’s Comments to the Authors
• This paper addresses the important practical problem of electric bus scheduling, proposing a solution
using the Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm, which has strong practical value. The paper structure
is clear, with well-organized chapters including problem statement, input parameters and decision
variables, SA algorithm introduction, pseudocode, and example problems. The choice of SA algorithm
to solve the scheduling problem is appropriate, and specific example problems are provided to verify
the method’s effectiveness. The references are also quite comprehensive, covering multiple relevant
studies in the field.

Thank you! We appreciate the thorough feedback as it has greatly improved the quality of our
work.

• It is suggested to appropriately shorten the paper length and highlight key content.

We appreciate your insight as to the length of the manuscript. We have thoroughly reviewed
the manuscript and have striven to remove repetitive and unnecessary material.

• Meanwhile, the applicability of this scheduling algorithm in actual vehicle operations could be further analyzed in combination with current trajectory tracking methods, which would enhance the
practical value of the paper. Additionally, it is recommended to add comparative analysis with
other scheduling algorithms to highlight the advantages of this method. The authors may consider
referring to the following literature to enhance the real-time performance and adaptability of the
algorithm: the parameter-adaptive non-model state estimation method combining attention mechanism and LSTM proposed by Jin et al. (2024), as well as related research in the literature doi:
10.1109/TAC.2021.3106861 and doi: 10.1109/TCE.2023.3331770. These references may help improve
the real-time performance and robustness of the algorithm.

Thank you for this interesting thought. However, the provided literature seem to be out of
scope of this work, similarly to that of the real-time performance. We have carefully revised
the contributions in an attempt to clarify the intent of our manuscript by adding the word
“static” when referring to the charging schedule and further clarifying the contributions of our
manuscript in the introduction. Furthermore, we believe that the comparisons made between
the two SA techniques, the BPAP, and Qin provides substantial ground for comparison.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper studied a simulated annealing approach to the scheduling of battery electric bus charging. The model validity is executed, however, I have some comments.

1) The simulated annealing approach is widely used in this area, and the innovation of this paper seems unclear.

2) What is the meaning of the Fig. 3 in this paper?

3) The value of parameters of the proposed approach should be given.

4) The analysis part of the results is not sufficient, and more data needs to be provided.

5) The different optimization methods have been widely implemented in this aspects, and the reference (DOI: 10.3390/app12168317) may be useful.

Author Response

Response To Reviewers
Alexander Brown
July 30, 2024
Thank you for taking the time to thoroughly review our manuscript and provide us the chance to submit
a revised version. The time and effort dedicated in providing this insightful feedback has contributed
greatly to the quality of this work. We have addressed all the suggestions made by the reviewers. Edits are
represented by the blue text embedded within the manuscript. Below is a point-by-point response to the
reviewers comments are presented. Relevant sections are mentioned when applicable to assist in searching
for the associated changes.

1

Reviewer’s Comments to the Authors

• This paper studied a simulated annealing approach to the scheduling of battery electric bus charging.
The model validity is executed, however, I have some comments.

Thank you! We greatly appreciate the time you have taken to review our manuscript. Your
comments have assisted us greatly in improving our manuscript.

• The simulated annealing approach is widely used in this area, and the innovation of this paper seems
unclear.

Thank you for this insightful comment. We have carefully revised the introduction clarify the
contributions of our work to the literature.

• What is the meaning of the Fig. 3 in this paper?

We appreciate this thought. The intent of the figure was to represent how the geometric cooling
equation changes within the “normal” range specified in the manuscript. However, after further
consideration, we found this figure not very insightful in regard to the rest of the manuscript.
The figure has therefore been removed with the associated text referencing it.

• The value of parameters of the proposed approach should be given.

Thank you again for this insightful thought. We have removed Table 1 in favor of a nomenclature
section which includes parameter values and units where applicable.
• The analysis part of the results is not sufficient, and more data needs to be provided.
Thank you again for your thorough review. We have included text further elaborating on the
figures plotting the charger count. However, we believe that within, the scope of our manuscript,
we have provided all the relevant data applicable to this work.

• The different optimization methods have been widely implemented in this aspects, and the reference
(DOI: 10.3390/app12168317) may be useful.

We want to thank you again for the time taken to review our manuscript. After reviewing the
provided manuscript, we believe that the work is out of scope from ours and are unsure as to
how it may be used.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for your revision.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I have no comments.