Electric Taxi Charging Load Prediction Based on Trajectory Data and Reinforcement Learning—A Case Study of Shenzhen Municipality

Abstract

In order to effectively solve the problem of electric taxi charging load prediction and reasonable charging behaviour discrimination, in this paper, we use taxi GPS trajectory data to mine the probability of operation behaviour in each area of the city, simulate the operation behaviour of a day by combining it with reinforcement learning ideas, obtain the optimal operation strategy through training, and count the spatial and temporal distributions and power values at the time of charging decision making, so as to predict the charging load of electric taxis. Experiments are carried out using taxi travel data in Shenzhen city centre. The results show that, in terms of taxi operation behaviour, the operation behaviour optimized by the DQN algorithm shows the optimal effect in terms of the passenger carrying time, mileage, and daily net income; in terms of the charging load distribution, the spatial charging demand of electric taxis in each area shows obvious differences, and the charging demand load located in the city centre area and close to the traffic hub is higher. In time, the peak charging demand is distributed around 3:00 to 4:00 and 14:00 to 15:00. Compared with the operating habits of drivers based on the Monte Carlo simulation, the DQN algorithm is able to optimise the efficiency and profitability of taxi drivers, which is more in line with the actual operating habits of drivers formed through accumulated experience, thus achieving a more accurate charging load distribution.