Agent-Based Simulation of Automated Electric Taxi Fleets with Variable Battery Range and Charging Station Distribution

Shared automated electric vehicles (SAEVs) hold great promise to improve inner-city accessibility while drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Using taxi trip data from New York City, the authors develop an agent-based model to predict the requirements of a fleet of SAEVs operating on Manhattan Island with respect to both the distribution of charging stations and battery range. They also develop a cost model to estimate the cost per mile of providing service, and employ extensive sensitivity analysis to test the robustness of the predictions. The authors estimate that costs will be lowest with a battery range of 70-120 miles, and 2,500-3,000 Level 2 charging stations spread across 300-500 locations. The authors estimate that the cost of service provided by such an SAEV fleet will be $0.37-$0.54/mi—an order of magnitude lower than that of present-day Manhattan taxis, and also lower than a fleet composed of any currently available hybrid or internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV). Such a fleet would reduce emissions by 67% over a fleet of ICEVs, and by 44% over a fleet of hybrid vehicles. These results suggest that electric vehicles can provide the lowest-cost service, and that the largest barrier to operating such a fleet will not be battery range, for which currently available electric vehicle models more than suffice, but the abundance of charging stations.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD40 Standing Committee on Transportation and Sustainability.
• Authors:
  • Bauer, Gordon S
  • Greenblatt, Jeffery B
  • Gerke, Brian F
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 9p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Electric vehicles; Intelligent vehicles; Simulation; Taxi services; Urban areas; Vehicle range
• Geographic Terms: New York (New York)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01661303
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-04899
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 26 2018 1:47PM