A proton electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell system and a Li-ion battery (LIB) are two power sources in a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV). The fuel cell system is composed of a fuel cell stack and subsystems for air/hydrogen supply and cooling water. The operation procedure of the fuel cell system can be generally separated into several processes, e.g. starting up, normal/abnormal working and shutting down. In this paper, a multi-mode real-time control strategy for a FCEV is proposed. The strategy is established based on three typical processes (starting up, normal working, shutting down) of the fuel cell system, taking the fuel economy and system durability into consideration. The strategy is applied into a platform vehicle for the 12th 5-year project of "the next generation technologies of fuel cell city buses". Experiments of the "China city bus typical cycle" on a test bench for the bus were carried out. Results show that, the fuel economy is 7.6 kg (100 km) in the battery charge-sustaining status. In a practical situation, a total driving mileage of more than 270 km can be achieved. Cycle testing also showed that, the degradation rate of the fuel cell was reduced to half of the original level. No performance degradation of the LIB system was observed in the cycling test. Copyright (C) 2013, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.