A User-Friendly Electric Vehicle Reallocation Solution for Uniformly Utilized Charging Stations

24 Pages Posted: 20 Oct 2023

See all articles by Panagiotis Skaloumpakas

Panagiotis Skaloumpakas

National Technical University of Athens

Evangelos Spiliotis

National Technical University of Athens, Greece

Daniela Stoian

National Technical University of Athens

George Stravodimos

National Technical University of Athens

Ioanna Makarouni

National Technical University of Athens

Vangelis Marinakis

National Technical University of Athens

Ioannis Psarras

National Technical University of Athens

Abstract

Electric vehicle (EV) users often struggle to identify charging stations (EVCSs) that are both available at the time of interest and placed in convenient locations. At the same time, EVCSs in nearby locations may systematically be underutilized. This variance in the utilization of the EVCSs can have negative implications, both for the EV users (e.g. higher anxiety, waiting time, and discomfort) and the owners/operators of the EVCSs (e.g. lower income and longer payback period of investment). The present work aims to mitigate said implications by introducing a solution that efficiently allocates EV users to stations based on their expected utilization and their proximity to the charging locations of preference. To do so, a forecasting model is first used to predict the arrivals at the EVCSs. Then, the utilization rates of the EVCSs are computed and a heuristic algorithm is employed to dynamically reallocate the EV users from overutilized stations to nearby, underutilized stations. The proposed approach, which has been implemented in a web-based application, is evaluated through simulation experiments and compared with the traditional ``first-come, first-served'' approach. The results indicate that our approach can achieve more uniformly distributed utilization rates with a minimal deterioration on the convenience of the EV users, thus offering a practical solution to the examined problem.

Keywords: Electric vehicles, Charging station utilization, Optimization, forecasting, Web application

Suggested Citation

Skaloumpakas, Panagiotis and Spiliotis, Evangelos and Stoian, Daniela and Stravodimos, George and Makarouni, Ioanna and Marinakis, Vangelis and Psarras, Ioannis, A User-Friendly Electric Vehicle Reallocation Solution for Uniformly Utilized Charging Stations. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4604191 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4604191

Panagiotis Skaloumpakas (Contact Author)

National Technical University of Athens ( email )

Evangelos Spiliotis

National Technical University of Athens, Greece ( email )

Patision Street 42
Athens, Attiki 10682
Greece

Daniela Stoian

National Technical University of Athens ( email )

National Technical University of Athens, 42 Patisi
Athens, 10682
Greece

George Stravodimos

National Technical University of Athens ( email )

Ioanna Makarouni

National Technical University of Athens ( email )

National Technical University of Athens, 42 Patisi
Athens, 10682
Greece

Vangelis Marinakis

National Technical University of Athens ( email )

National Technical University of Athens, 42 Patisi
Athens, 10682
Greece

Ioannis Psarras

National Technical University of Athens ( email )

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