Multi-Criteria, Co-Evolutionary Charging Behavior: An Agent-Based Simulation of Urban Electromobility

Lennart Adenaw,Markus Lienkamp

doi:10.3390/wevj12010018

Abstract

In order to electrify the transport sector, scores of charging stations are needed to incentivize people to buy electric vehicles. In urban areas with a high charging demand and little space, decision-makers are in need of planning tools that enable them to efficiently allocate financial and organizational resources to the promotion of electromobility. As with many other city planning tasks, simulations foster successful decision-making. This article presents a novel agent-based simulation framework for urban electromobility aimed at the analysis of charging station utilization and user behavior. The approach presented here employs a novel co-evolutionary learning model for adaptive charging behavior. The simulation framework is tested and verified by means of a case study conducted in the city of Munich. The case study shows that the presented approach realistically reproduces charging behavior and spatio-temporal charger utilization.

Highlights

Multi-Criteria, Co-EvolutionaryIn order to decelerate climate change, greenhouse gas emissions have to be reduced substantially and as fast as possible, a fact that is long established in and outside the scientific community and that has gained broad acknowledgment and binding worldwide commitment with the ratification of the Paris agreement [1] in 2015
Agent-based simulations have emerged as standard tools for policy and infrastructure planning in both general transportation and electromobility
Despite the quantity and breadth of publications on the subject of electromobility simulations, existing contributions fall short in their ability to model realistic user behavior and often introduce assumptions that are not up to date or do not apply to wide study areas

Summary

Introduction

Multi-Criteria, Co-EvolutionaryIn order to decelerate climate change, greenhouse gas emissions have to be reduced substantially and as fast as possible, a fact that is long established in and outside the scientific community and that has gained broad acknowledgment and binding worldwide commitment with the ratification of the Paris agreement [1] in 2015. Decarbonization of the transport sector helps us to remain within target emission thresholds. Comprehensive policies are in place that regulate vehicle fleet emissions in all major automobile markets of the world. The European Union, for instance, has set an emission threshold of 95 g CO2 km−1 for vehicles licensed in 2020 and 2021 [2]. Conventional vehicle fleets with internal combustion engines are hardly able to comply with these ambitious targets. To avoid financial penalties, car manufacturers are adding more and more energy efficient battery electric vehicles (BEV) to their product portfolios. Despite all efforts, current adoption rates of BEV continue to remain behind expectations. One of the key drivers of BEV adoption is the availability of adequate charging facilities, close to homes and work places [4,5]. City councils, commercial businesses, and home owners are already creating charging facilities

Results

Discussion

Conclusion