Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200

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Solar potential assessment of public bus routes for solar buses

Naveed ur Rehman a, b, *, Mohamad Hijazi a, Muhammad Uzair c
a
School of Engineering Trades and Technology, Southern Institute of Technology, Invercargill, 9840, New Zealand
b
School of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand
c
NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Current work investigates a method for evaluating the solar potential of public bus routes for solar
Received 26 February 2020 electric buses. As access of solar radiation to roads is generally hindered by natural and man-made
Received in revised form structures in the surroundings, the methodology involved taking several fisheye images along the
6 April 2020
chosen bus route. The visible sky and the structures were then separated using an automated image
Accepted 16 April 2020
Available online 22 April 2020
processing algorithm, also presented in this work. Then, these processed images were deployed in a solar
assessment model to yield the weighted average yearly solar irradiation on the route. This was then
compared with the energy requirements of an electric bus to see what fraction of its demand could be
Keywords:
Solar potential assessment
offset. For the case study, an existing public bus route in Invercargill (New Zealand) was analyzed. An
Public bus route appropriate fisheye camera was installed on the rooftop of a vehicle to obtain the images. It was found
Sky exposure that installing solar panels on the rooftop of an electric bus may offset ~8.5% of the electricity demand.
Urban solar This study will help councils (and/or bus contractors) to make decisions about moving to solar photo-
Electric vehicle voltaic integrated electric buses, based on their designated routes.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction which are potential threats to the economy [3,4].

Public buses are an integral part of modern community services,
providing mass transit facilities in and around urban areas. They
have fixed time-tables and run on established routes. In general,
they are monitored and controlled by a dedicated municipal
department of transportation, which may employ private con-
tractors (bus owners and drivers) to provide the services.
The primary purpose of these buses is always to serve the
general public; however, they are made financially sustainable and
may make net revenue by selling tickets and displaying paid ad-
vertisements [1,2]. The key running expenditures in operating
these buses include the employees’ pay, operation and mainte-
nance, and fuel. While the first two expenses can be minimized
through efficient human resource management and good planning,
the fuel cost is proportional to the distance travelled and greatly
depends on the unit price. Petroleum-sourced diesel (or fossil
diesel) is the most common fuel used in such buses. If it is not a
local product of the country concerned, it increases the demand for
imported diesel and raises external energy dependence, both of
* Corresponding author. School of Engineering Trades and Technology, Southern
Institute of Technology, Invercargill, 9840, New Zealand.
E-mail address: naveed.urrehman@sit.ac.nz (N. ur Rehman).
The electric bus is an advanced vehicle that uses an electric
propulsion system instead of an internal combustion engine, driven
by electric charge stored in an on-board battery. The battery can be
charged through the electricity grid, at charging stations. However,
an offset of this required energy can be achieved by using on-site
solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. These devices can convert a clean,
renewable and freely available source of energy, i.e. sunlight,
directly into electricity. PV panels can be installed at bus stations or
on the rooftops of the buses themselves [5e7]. The advantage of
rooftop installation is that the bus can be charged anytime and
anywhere, even while travelling. Also, rooftop systems do not
require additional land and mounting structures at the bus stations.
However, since the PV panels are fitted flat on the rooftop to
minimize the air drag, such installations lack the possibility to track
the sun, unlike installations on land. An electric bus with rooftop-
mounted PV panels is hereafter referred to as a solar bus.
Integrating PV panels adds to the cost of a bus. The panels will
also increase the overall weight of the bus, which will eventually
impact on efficiency and mechanical wear and tear. Since the
panels are horizontal, they would be likely to acquire more soiling
over time if not cleaned regularly, compared to tilted panels, thus
diminishing the conversion efficiency. Therefore, analyzing the PV
panel performance and viability is crucial, as the practicality of on-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.04.081
0960-1481/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
194 N. ur Rehman et al. / Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200
Nomenclature
A Rooftop area of bus available for PV panel installation
(m2)
C Color components sum (
)
d Span covered by the point (m)
e_ Energy consumption of electric bus per unit of
distance travelled (kWhr/km)
Ebus Yearly electricity demand of bus per unit rooftop area
available for PV panel installation (kWhr/m2)
Esol Weighted average yearly solar irradiation (kWhr/m2)
i Point on bus route (
)
I Hourly total irradiation (kWhr/m2)
Ib Hourly beam irradiation (kWhr/m2)
Id Hourly diffuse irradiation (kWhr/m2)
K Shadow factor for beam radiation (
)
Ke Shadow factor for element (
)
L Distance travelled by the bus in a year (km)
N Total number of points (
)
board PV panels depends heavily upon the amount of solar energy
the panels capture during routine travel. For buses that run mostly
on highways and in open surroundings, the energy capture should
be larger than for buses that travel through city centers, where the
horizon is typically occupied by multi-storey buildings, bridges, tall
monuments and other structures [8].
Like all other solar applications, obstructions in the sun’s path
and sky reduce the potential amount of solar energy that can be
captured by the rooftop panels. This raises questions about the
practicability of solar buses on urban routes. Thus, it is essential to
analyze the solar potential of bus routes running through urban
settings, before any investment decision about converting (or
replacing) normal electric buses with solar buses is made.
Some previous studies have determined solar potential on roads
and highways. For example, Sharma and Harinarayana [9] explored
the potential of electricity generation using PV panels, installed on
land near a 205 km Indian national highway. However, they did not
consider any obstructions, as the supposed height of the mountings
was greater than any other structure or trees in the surrounding
environment. Similarly, Lee et al. [10] performed a financial feasi-
bility study for solar energy generation potential alongside national
highways in Korea. Again, in their framework, they used the all-sky
solar potential that is received when obstructions are ignored.
Bellucci et al. [11] analyzed the solar energy potential for imple-
menting the PV panels mounted on the noise barriers along na-
tional roads in Italy. A Geographic Information System (GIS)-based
analysis was performed that accounted for traffic flow, solar radi-
ation and meteorological data as well as geometrical and
morphological configurations. However, in such analyses, obtaining
updated geo-spatial information has always been challenging and
expensive. Jung et al. [12] also performed a GIS-based study to
produce digital numerical maps depicting the solar energy poten-
tial on national highway slopes. However, the installations on
slopes are always tilted, which is not the case in bus rooftop in-
stallations. It appears that no study has been conducted to inves-
tigate the solar potential of urban bus routes.
Among the various methods of quantifying the obscured por-
tions of the sky and sun path blockages in different locations on a
site (or road), walkthrough surveys are the cheapest and simplest.
However, although they do not require any special tools, the quality
of the results is very subject to the experience and judgement of the
ðR; G; BÞ Absolute color components (
)
ðR’; G’; B’Þ Fraction color components (
)
SVF Sky view factor (
)
T Hour of the year (
)
a Altitude angle in fisheye image (deg)
ae Altitude angle of element (deg)
as Sun’s Altitude angle (deg)
Da Altitudinal dimension of sky element at base of
hemisphere (deg)
g Azimuth angle in fisheye image (deg)
ge Azimuth angle of element (deg)
gs Sun’s Azimuth angle (deg)
Dg Azimuthal dimension of sky element at base of
hemisphere (deg)
hsol Efficiency of solar PV panel (%)
qe Incidence angle (deg)
4 Fraction of energy offset by the PV panels (%)
ue Solid angle subtended by an element (sr)
surveyor. To overcome this limitation, image processing analysis
based on fisheye images can be used. Ultrawide angle lenses are
used for capturing such images. Since the view-angle of such lenses
is typically 180⁰, a single fisheye image can capture the full hemi-
spherical view around a point in a single image. Tomori et al. [13]
used fisheye images to determine the azimuth of objects and
shadow lengths. The results were used to estimate the solar po-
tential for building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) applications.
Chapman et al. [14] investigated the application of infrared fisheye
cameras for assessing cloud-related parameters. The camera was
especially prototyped for the project. More recently, Rehman et al.
[15] presented an approach to estimate the solar potential of
parking devices mounted in a usual downtown of a city. They used
an ordinary fisheye camera to capture images from the top of
parking machines, and the sky and obstructions were separated
using a semi-automated image processing algorithm.
No such study has been previously conducted in the context of
urban bus routes; therefore, this study presents a method, along
with a case study, for assessing the solar potential of urban bus
routes for solar buses.
2. Method
Fundamentally, the openness of the bus route to both the sky
and the sun path should characterize its solar potential. The shape
of the obscured portions of the sky, when viewed along the route,
may differ due to varying surroundings. Thus, several points should
be chosen throughout the route. We can assume that there are N
points chosen for analysis purposes, and an individual point can be
identified by a number, i, as illustrated in Fig. 1. When choosing the
points, care should be taken to ensure that the view of the sky from
everywhere on the span across the point is roughly the same. The
length of the span is represented by d. Therefore, a single point with
a long span would be enough for open views, whereas several
points with smaller spans would be required on the portions of the
route that pass through complicated urban settings (e.g. city
centers).
Solar radiation is mainly composed of direct, diffuse and re-
flected components [16]. The last component includes reflected
sub-components from the ground and various obstructions. In our
case, the last component is excluded as the panels are installed
 N. ur Rehman et al. / Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200
Fig. 1. Illustration of the points chosen on the bus route along with their spans.
horizontally (i.e. the panels do not see the ground at all). Also, the
reflected component from obstructions, such as building facades
and windows, has been ignored for the sake of simplicity. Hence,
during any time span T, the solar irradiation (I) received by a point
‘i‘, facing the sky, can be evaluated by using Eq. (1):
Ii ðTÞ ¼ Ibi ðTÞ , sinðasi Þ , Ki ðTÞ þ Idi ðTÞ,SVFi
where Ib and Id are the hourly beam (at normal) and isotropic
diffuse irradiation on the horizontal plane, respectively, as is the
altitude angle of the sun, K is the shadow factor, which has a binary
value (‘1’ when the point can see the sun and ‘0’ when the point is
in shadow), and SVF is the sky view factor that defines the fraction
of the sky (hemisphere), visible from the point. As the SVF is in-
dependent of the position of the sun, for each point it is treated as
constant throughout the year [17].
The hourly beam and diffuse irradiation data and the position of
the sun in terms of its altitude angle (as ) and azimuth angle (gs )
[16], can be obtained from widely used databases such as Ener-
gyPlus weather [18], time and date databases [19], and Typical
Meteorological Year (TMY) files exported from the TRNSYS package
[20]. It is also assumed that the bus is running only during the day
and not at night. The values of K and SVF require processing of
fisheye images, as explained here.
First, an example illustrating the process of capturing the image,
Fig. 2. Process of capturing fisheye images on the bus route.
195
using an appropriate camera/lens installed on the top of a vehicle, is
shown in Fig. 2.
The fisheye image represents the top-view of the hemisphere
around the point in two dimensions, depicting all the obstructions
and the sky, above and around the point, stored in the form of
pixels, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Each pixel can be accessed when
provided with the altitude angle (aÞ and the azimuth angle (g). The
altitude angle describes the angular height of the pixel and there-
fore, it is 0⁰ at horizontal and 90⁰ at zenith. In contrast, the azimuth
angle describes the location of a point on the plane, measured from
true north.
The class of every pixel (i.e. whether it belongs to the sky or to an
obstruction) can be obtained using image processing calculations.
In this work, an automated image processing algorithm was
developed for the purpose. It is an efficient derivative of our pre-
viously proposed algorithm [15] and is explained in the Appendix.
The output of this algorithm is a binary fisheye that classifies each
pixel as sky (¼1) or obstruction (¼0).
The value of K at the T th hour of the year is represented using set
of the pixel located at the sun orientation (as and gs ) in the pro-
cessed fisheye image. The SVF is calculated according to the sky
discretization method, as presented in our previous work [17]. In
this method, the sky vault around the point is distributed into large
number of elements, radiating the fraction of diffuse radiation in
the form of radiances, moving towards the receiving point. The SVF
of a point can be obtained mathematically as shown in Eq. (2):
(1)
P360 P90
g ¼0 a ¼0 ðue :cos qe ,Ke Þ
SVF ¼ Pe 360 Pe 90 (2)
ge ¼0 ae ¼0 ðue :cos qe Þ
where ue ¼ Da Dg cos ae is the solid angle of the radiating element
located at the altitude and azimuth angles of ae and ge , respectively,
as illustrated in Fig. 4, Da and Dg are the altitudinal and azimuthal
dimensions of the sky element at the base of the hemisphere, qe is
the angle of incidence between the radiance emanating from the
element and the normal to the receiving plane ( ¼ 90
ae ), Ke is
the shadow factor for the element, which is a binary number rep-
resenting whether the element is sky (¼1) or obstruction (¼0) and
can be obtained from the processed fisheye image. A view with no
obstructions will have an SVF of 1.0, otherwise, its value will be less
than that.
Then, in order to obtain the weighted average yearly irradiation
collected by all the points on the route over the year (Esol ), the
hourly irradiation over the year is integrated, as shown in Eq. (3):
" #,
XX  X 
Esol ¼ ðIi ðTÞ , di Þ N di (3)
T i
The application of Eq. (3) involves the following assumptions: (i)
the bus passes through these points with a high daily frequency; (ii)
the routes are not summer- or winter-only routes i.e. the bus
operates on these routes year round; and (iii) the routes are small
and so the duration of the round trips is trivial compared to average
day lengths. Such assumptions are applicable to most urban bus
routes. However, the calculations may yield erroneous results if
applied on routes that are long and have lower daily frequencies,
such as intercity routes.
To determine the yearly irradiation requirements of the bus per
unit rooftop area where PV panels can be installed (Ebus ), consid-
ering an electric bus that travels a distance L in a year on that route,
and consumes e_ units of electric energy per unit of distance trav-
elled, has s rooftop area of A where the PV panels can be mounted,
and hsol is the conversion efficiency of the PV panels, then:
196 N. ur Rehman et al. / Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200

Fig. 3. (a) Hemisphere around the point and (b) the fisheye image.

Fig. 4. The sky is discretised into radiating elements to evaluate the Sky View Factor
(SVF).

_ hsol
Ebus ¼ Le=A (4)
For simplicity, the dependence of hsol on termpeature and the
battery charging efficiency has been ignored.
Finally, the fraction (4) of electric bus energy demand that can
be offset by the PV panels can be evaluated using Eq. (5):

4 ¼ Esol =Ebus (5)

The higher the fraction, the greater will be the solar potential of
the bus route for that bus.

3. Results and discussion

To investigate the method, a case study was carried out for the
Waikiwi link bus route, operating in Invercargill, New Zealand [21].
The bus passes through suburbs having mostly single storey
buildings, and through the city center where most of the buildings
Fig. 5. Points and their spans chosen on the Waikiwi Link bus route (Invercargill, New
along the roadside are multi-storey. For the purpose of analysis, 22 Zealand) [21].
points were chosen along the whole route. The points, along with
their spans, are shown in Fig. 5.
A high-definition 360 camera [22] was installed on the rooftop and the results are presented in Fig. 7. The minimum value of SVF
of a vehicle to obtain fish-eye images. The size of these images were was found to be 0.76 which was for point #5. The highest value of
set as 256  256 pixels. The direction of true north, considering the SVF was found to be 0.98, for point #16 and point #19.
magnetic declination of Invercargill (¼ þ25 41’ east [23]), was also To determine the solar potential of all the points, solar radiation
recorded using a digital compass while capturing the images. Then, data were obtained from EnergyPlus weather [18] and the sun
the all the images were processed to separate the class of each pixel positions were obtained from a Time and Date database [19]. The
according to the algorithm illustrated in Appendix. The fisheye solar potential in terms of yearly irradiation for all the points is
images (original and the processed) are presented in Fig. 6. shown in Fig. 8. The weighted average yearly irradiation collected
The SVF was evaluated for each point, taking Dg ¼ Da ¼ 1 [17],
 N. ur Rehman et al. / Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200 197

Fig. 6. (a) Original fisheye images and (b) The processed fisheye images obtained using the algorithm explained in the Appendix.

by all the points over the year was found to be Esol ¼ 1436 kWhr=
m2 .
To determine the yearly irradiation requirements of the electric
bus, the distance a Waikiwi link bus travels annually was estimated
from its schedule, available at [24]. A bus runs 15 and 5 round trips
during weekdays and weekends, respectively. The distance per
round trip was measured using Google maps [25] and was found to
be approximately 16 km. Hence, in a year, the bus travels nearly L ¼
70; 720 km. If the bus was an electric bus, it would be consuming
e_ ¼ 1 kWhr=km [26]. The rooftop area of a typical city bus is taken
as A ¼ 30 m2 [27] and the PV conversion efficiency is taken as hsol ¼
14% [28]. Hence, the yearly irradiation requirement of the bus per
unit of rooftop area where PV panels can be mounted was found to
be Ebus ¼ 16; 838 kWhr=m2 . This indicates that the available solar
198 N. ur Rehman et al. / Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200
Fig. 7. Sky View Factor (SVF) of each point on the chosen bus route.
Fig. 8. The yearly irradiation obtained for all points on the chosen bus route.
potential along the bus route can offset 4 ¼ 8:5% of the annual
electricity demand of an electric bus. It must be noted that the
results may be affected by the solar radiation data input, as its
uncertainty and biases are unknown.
4. Conclusion
The electricity demand of electric buses can be offset by
installing PV panels on their rooftops. However, the feasibility is
subject to the solar radiation available on the bus route, especially if
it passes through complicated urban settings, such as city centers.
Multi-storey buildings, bridges and other structures in the sur-
roundings obstruct the sun path and sky and thus lessen the
available solar potential. As the addition of solar panels will add to
the cost of the bus, we recommend performing solar potential as-
sessments of bus routes before any investment decision is made.
This paper has presented a scheme for assessing the solar po-
tential of a public bus route for solar buses that run through urban
settings. The method is established by taking several fish-eye im-
ages along the chosen bus route using an ordinary camera. The
images are then processed using an automated image processing
algorithm that classifies the pixels as sky or obstructions. These
images are then deployed in a solar potential assessment model
that also takes into account the hourly beam (normal) and isotropic
diffuse irradiation data as well as the position of the sun in the sky
for a typical year. The model yields a weighted average yearly solar
irradiation for the bus route, which is then compared with the
energy demand of an electric bus, operating on the same route. The
fraction of the bus’s energy demand that can be offset by the PV
panels is then evaluated for the specific route.
A case study, considering the Waikiwi link bus route in Inver-
cargill (New Zealand) is also presented. In total, 22 fisheye images
were captured using a high-definition 360⁰ camera, installed on the
rooftop of a vehicle. The solar potential assessment model yielded a
weighted average yearly solar irradiation of 1436 kWhr=m2 . The
annual energy demand of the electric bus, per unit of its rooftop
area, was found to be 16; 838 kWhr=m2 . Thus, installing PV panels
can offset ~8.5% of the yearly energy demand.
The results may be different in more modern cities where the
sky is frequently obstructed by large numbers of sky scrapers and
more complicated structures. This study will help in making
informed decisions about moving to solar PV-integrated electric
buses, based on their designated routes.
One of the future directions of this research could be to evaluate
whether the compromised exposure of a bus rooftop is a reasonable
trade-off compared to installations on bus stations. This is because
the same PV panels, in general, would be producing more energy if
they were sited on a well-exposed fixed surface and optimally
tilted.
On the other hand, comparing the fuel cost for the bus with and
without the PV panels, evaluating the performance of panels
installed on other exposed surfaces of buses, analysing the possi-
bilities of optimizing the tilt angle and/or including sun tracking,
and financial feasibility studies of electric and hybrid buses are
interesting research avenues that require further investigation.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Naveed ur Rehman: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software,
Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing, Visualization. Mohamad Hijazi: Vali-
dation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Visualization.
Muhammad Uzair: Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Re-
sources, Writing - review & editing, Visualization.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their valuable
and constructive feedback.
Appendix
This section presents an automated method for identifying
pixels according to their classes i.e. sky and obstructions. This is an
efficient derivative of our semi-automated algorithm, previously
proposed in Ref. [15]. The main limitation of the previous algorithm
was a manual step, which had to be performed for every image.
Hence, it was not suitable for processing large numbers of images,
which were expected in the current study. An overview of the new
method is given in Fig. 9.
 N. ur Rehman et al. / Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200 199

Fig. 9. Overview of automated image processing algorithm.

Then, a range analysis on the color components of the high-

The first step was to randomly choose a few images that will be lighted pixels in all the training images was performed. In this step,
used for training purposes. The noticeable shades of the sky (e.g. the absolute and the fractional color values of the highlighted pixels
dark blue, light blue and near white) in these images were then were obtained using a 24-bit RGB color model [30] and Eq. (6),
manually highlighted using JS Paint [29], which is a free, simple respectively:
graphic editor. For our case study, we picked the images taken from
points #1, #2 and #3 on the chosen bus route. The three shades
2 3 2 3
R’ R
were highlighted in red, green and blue, as shown in Fig. 10. 4 G’ 5 ¼ 4 G 5, 1 (6)
C
B’ B

Fig. 10. The sky shades highlighted in the fisheye images captured at points #1, #2 and #3 on the chosen bus route.

Table 1 where R, G and B represent the absolute red, green and blue color
The generated lookup database using range analysis components, R’, G’ and B’ represent the fractions, and
Sky shade Color component Minimum Maximum C ¼ R þ G þ B þ 1: The range analysis yields a lookup database
which contains the minimum and maximum value of each absolute
Dark blue shade Absolute Red (R) 41 189
Green (G) 58 210
and fraction color for each sky shade. For the chosen training im-
Blue (B) 74 214 ages, the generated lookup database is provided in Table 1. This step
Fraction Red (R’) 0.24 0.31 was performed using a computer program written in an open
Green (G’) 0.32 0.36 source programming environment.
Blue (B’) 0.35 0.43
Lastly, image masking was performed by picking all the original
Light blue shade Absolute Red (R) 159 255
Green (G) 181 255 images, one by one, scanning through their pixels and determining
Blue (B) 202 255 whether their color components lay within the ranges available in
Fraction Red (R’) 0.29 0.34 the lookup database. If the pixel’s color satisfied the ranges, it was
Green (G’) 0.33 0.34 classified as sky, otherwise as an obstruction. The results for all the
Blue (B’) 0.33 0.38
Near white shade Absolute Red (R) 104 220
22 images taken in the case study are illustrated in Fig. 6(b).
Green (G) 119 239
Blue (B) 138 255
Fraction Red (R’) 0.26 0.32
Green (G’) 0.31 0.35
Blue (B’) 0.36 0.40
200 N. ur Rehman et al. / Renewable Energy 156 (2020) 193e200

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