Abstract
Operational planning at public transport companies is a complex process that usually comprises several phases. In the planning phase, schedules are constructed considering that buses arrive and depart as scheduled. Obviously, several disruptions frequently occur, but their impact on the operating conditions is not easy to estimate. This difficulty arises mostly due to the impossibility of testing different solutions under the same conditions. Indeed, typically, the available data are a result of the current plan, while new proposed solutions have not produced real data yet. Along this chapter we discuss the assessment of the impact of changes in the operational planning on the real operating conditions, before their occurrence. We present a framework for such assessment, which includes two components: the impact on costs, and the impact on revenues. We believe that this framework will be useful in future works on operational planning of public transport companies. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

Abstract
In this paper, we presented a probabilistic framework to predict Bus Bunching (BB) occurrences in real-time. It uses both historical and real-time data to approximate the headway distributions on the further stops of a given route by employing both offline and online supervised learning techniques. Such approximations are incrementally calculated by reusing the latest prediction residuals to update the further ones. These update rules extend the Perceptron's delta rule by assuming an adaptive beta value based on the current context. These distributions are then used to compute the likelihood of forming a bus platoon on a further stop - which may trigger an threshold-based BB alarm. This framework was evaluated using real-world data about the trips of 3 bus lines throughout an year running on the city of Porto, Portugal. The results are promising.

Abstract
The organizations ability to manage corporate environmental performance is emerging as a strategic issue for companies. Environmental decision-making requires an explicit methodology in which it must be possible to articulate the involvement of various stakeholders, incorporate multi-disciplinary knowledge, and integrate criteria involving trade-offs in order to deal with different opinions and heterogeneous factors. The choice of sustainable options for the company and the creation of commitments among stakeholders are a must for businesses. The main motivation of this paper is to present results from the initial steps of the development of a methodology to support decision-making of corporate environmental strategies. Illustrations from an ongoing case study are presented. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

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Abstract
This paper intends to analyze the performance of an electric bus for three different routes in the city of Oporto. The objective is to study the correlation between the type of route a bus travels and the amount of energy it spends in performing it. Besides energy, the potential of the recovering part of it through regenerative braking will also be discussed. It is expected that long and demanding routes, e.g. those encompassing meandering paths, will make the bus use more energy. To accomplish these objectives, a simulation platform was built upon both a nanoscopic representation of the electrical bus and its microscopic interaction with the road traffic network while performing different journeys through specific routes. Simulation results are compared and discussed, as well as are directions for future work identified. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Scientific Committee