Hydrogen station allocation under stochastic user-equilibrium network flow

Abstract

A model to locate hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs) for hydrogen fuel cells vehicles (HFCVs) or hydrogen internal combustion engines vehicles (HICEVs) is proposed in this paper. The model integrated the flow-capturing location allocation (FCLA) model and stochastic user-equilibrium (SUE) status of network flow. An equilibrium algorithm obviating cannibalization was also presented. We compared the effectiveness between node location and link location determined by FCLA between SUE status and non-equilibrium status of the transportation network taking the city of Anaheim in California in America as an example. The results showed that the capture ratios of node-serving and link-serving are different. For the non-equilibrium case, equilibrium case, and hybrid case, the capture ratios of node-serving are 77.72%, 69.51%, and 60.25%, respectively, while the capture ratios of link-serving are 54.37%, 46.34%, and 31.49%, respectively. This means Node-serving performs better than link-serving in terms of capturing flow, either in equilibrium status or non-equilibrium status. The node locations or link locations obtained by the FCLA method in SUE status should be used for locating HRSs because they are consistent with peoples’ route choice behavior and thus can fully capture the expected flow in reality. Practically speaking, link locations are preferable to node locations in locating HRSs because the construction and operation of HRSs on nodes are relatively difficult to implement.