ECCO 2024
Abstract Submission

35. Charging ahead: Optimal location of wireless power transfer systems to electrify urban roads

Contributed abstract in session SA-1: Location optimization, stream Location optimization.

Saturday, 10:00 - 11:30
Room: L226

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Thomas Byrne
Department of Management Science, University of Strathclyde
2. Yudai Honma
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

Abstract

Many experts agree that the electrification of the transportation sector will be vital in our efforts to stem climate change. Indeed, if all cars on the road became electric, we could cut almost one-fifth of global emissions. To this end, the UK government, among others, has announced a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars after 2035. However, currently, fewer than 1% of cars on UK roads are powered entirely by electricity, with similar statistics in most other countries.

The two widely accepted chief barriers to switching to an electric vehicle (EV) for private, commercial, and public transport are cost and “range anxiety”. Fortunately, a recently-developed technology solves both: a wireless power transfer system (WPTS) on which vehicles can charge while in motion. By directly and efficiently receiving power while moving along an “electric road”, battery size as well as dedicated charging time and space can be saved. This revolutionary technology is being widely heralded as the future of transport. However, it is of little value if not effectively implemented. The question of what to electrify remains (the WPTS is prohibitively expensive) and it is this challenge to which this talk rises.

Just this year, a new mixed-integer programming model was proposed to determine the optimal location of WPTSs in order to maximise total feasible demand flow on a transport network. This flow-capturing model for WPTS locations focused on long-distance trips on expressways, considering the installation of WPTS as continuous variables (and observed that WPTS has a strong potential as an electric vehicle power supply system in terms of coverage and economic rationality).

An alternative focus which has high demand for such a charging infrastructure is in urban environments. Given the slower speeds travelled upon city streets (often with stationary traffic) and reduced area compared to expressways, this represents an application with lower investment cost and likely higher utilisation.

It is from here that we take our inspiration; we will design and implement optimisation models to identify optimal segments of an existing urban transport network to electrify, taking into account the population continuously distributed around and the behaviours and characteristics of users of the transport infrastructure. The goal, as before, is to maximise the number of EV users of the road network. In order to design such a robust network model, we exploit the grid-like structures found naturally in most urban environments and utilise geometric results to quantify the benefit of electrifying select edges, all while incorporating route uncertainty.

43% of people do not think the UK will ever be ready for the electric revolution. This work will help to transform, for the UK and other countries like it, the necessary choice into a feasible and affordable one.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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