Development and Evaluation of Decision Support Tools for Promoting Electric Vehicles

The growing concerns about energy security and global climate change have stimulated the transition to alternative fuel vehicles (AFV), widely considered an important ingredient in sustainable transportation (1). Of the many competing technologies, plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) have received much attention thanks to their high energy efficiency (2), the ability to substitute electricity for petroleum and the potential to reduce carbon footprint (3). However, the adoption of PEVs is hurdled by several critical factors: the relatively high retail price, the short range of batteries, and the lack of supporting infrastructure, especially charging stations (4). In the US, policy makers have created various incentive program aiming to overcome some of these barriers. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) signed into law a provision that will offer up to $7,500 of tax credit for each new PEV purchase starting from 2010. The state governments in the US have also implemented various policies to encourage the ownership of PEVs and installation of charging stations. In Illinois, for example, Electric Vehicle Initiatives provide a rebate up to $49,000 toward the installation of Level II charging stations and a rebate up to $ 4000 for the purchase of a new alternate fuel vehicle. It is clear that the public investment on these incentive programs is a scarce resource that should be carefully allocated to maximize its impact. Funded by Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), our project aims at developing mathematical models that support resource allocation in this process. When fully implemented, the models created in this project may help the policy makers decide (1) when and how much money should be invested on what incentive programs in order to achieve a desired goal (e.g. reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced dependence on petroleum); and (2) how to plan the charging infrastructure in order to meet the the demand for intercity trips made using PEVs. In what follows, we briefly explain the progress we were able to make with the resources provided by ISEN. The first part focuses on the optimization of incentive policies, and the second deals with the problem of locating charging stations along heavily traveled corridors.