Charging Electric Vehicle Sharing Fleet
ABSTRACT
Many cities worldwide are embracing electric vehicle (EV) sharing as a flexible and sustainable means of urban transit. However, it remains challenging for the operators to charge the fleet because of limited or costly access to charging facilities. We focus on answering the core question—how to charge the fleet to make EV sharing viable and profitable. Our work is motivated by the setback that struck San Diego, California, where car rental company car2go ceased its EV-sharing operations. We integrate charging infrastructure planning and vehicle repositioning operations that were often considered separately. More interestingly, our modeling emphasizes the operator-controlled charging operations and customers’ EV-picking behavior. With advanced operations research models, we find that the viability of EV sharing can be enhanced by concentrating limited charger resources at selected locations. Both the high-level planning guidelines and operational policies can be useful for practitioners.
BIOGRAPHY
Prof. Xin Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, affiliated with Grainger Institute for Engineering, at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Prof. Wang’s research expertise lies in developing mathematical models and solution methods for sustainable and resilient logistics systems, interconnected systems of systems, vehicle sharing for urban mobility, supply chain management, and traffic flow modeling and analysis. He has been applying his research on many pressing transportation challenges where uncertainties and competitions are critical, such as sustainable logistics system planning, electric vehicle sharing, smart parking, and integration of electric vehicle and power grid system.