Hydraulic hybrid powertrains are a critical technology used in buses to improve fuel economy and emission performance. New exploration in configuring a parallel hydraulic hybrid bus (PHHB) is developed in this paper with no changes made to the conventional base bus driveline. An integrated model and simulation of the parallel hydraulic hybrid bus is built based on AMESim, which is used to model the hydraulic powertrain and conventional bus driveline, and interlinked with a Matlab/Simulink/Stateflow model of the control unit. Compared to conventional buses, the fuel economy of the PHHB improved by 28% in real road tests at the SMVIC (National Center of Supervision and Inspection on Motor Products Quality (Shanghai)); the approximate improvement of fuel economy was 30% in simulated runs, which validates our model. Then a Non-linear Programming by Quadratic Lagrangian algorithm (NLPQL), is applied to optimize control strategies for improving fuel economy and emissions. Simulations also demonstrate that fuel economy and emission performance can be significantly improved. However, optimum parameters for maximum fuel economy and minimum emissions are not consistent. Simulation results show tradeoffs between fuel economy and emissions in PHHB, and optimal parameters can be selected by balancing design objectives.