Optimal dispatching of electric vehicles for providing charging on- demand service leveraging charging-on-the-move technology

Range anxiety and charging infrastructure scarcity have been the main challenges for the mass adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). The emerging mobile electric-vehicle-to-electric-vehicle (mE2) charging technology offers a promising solution, which combines battery-to-battery and connected and autonomous vehicle technologies to enable an EV with an extra battery to charge another EV on the move. This webinar focuses on the efficient pairing and routing of electricity providers (EPs) to demand (EDs) by extending the existing Charging-as-a-Service (CaaS) strategy to the mE2 charging service (referred to as CaaS + ). Dr. Lili Du will discuss the EP fleet management problem, which is mathematically modeled as a vehicle routing problem (i.e., mE2-VRP), aiming to optimally dispatch the minimum number of EPs to approach and serve the EDs using different proportions of EV flows to save EDs’ travel time and mitigate traffic congestion to different extents in different network congestion and charging station coverage scenarios. She will also discuss suggestions for improving the service efficiency of CaaS + .

PRESENTER 

Dr. Lili Du is an associate professor in the Civil and Coastal Engineering Department, University of Florida. Before that, she worked as an assistant and then an associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) from 2012 to 2017, and as a Post-doctoral Research Associate for NEXTRANS at Purdue University from 2008 to 2012. Dr. Du received her Ph.D. degree in Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems with a minor in Operations Research and Statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2008. Dr. Du’s research is characterized by integrating operations research, network modeling, game theory, control theory, machine learning, and statistical methods into traffic flow analysis, transportation system analysis, and network modeling. Her current research mainly focuses on the impacts of connected and/or autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles, mobility on demand, smart curb, network resilience, and traffic flow analysis. Dr. Du’s research has been published in Transportation Research Part B, Part C, and Part D, IEEE Transactions on ITS, Networks and Spatial Economics. Her research has been funded by National Science Foundation (NSF), State DOT, STRIDE UTC, and Toyota InfoTechnology Center. Dr. Du is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2016. Her recent project, “Driverless City” won the First Nayar Prize at IIT. She is the founding chair of both TRB AEP40-4 subcommittee on Emerging Technologies in Network Modeling and ASCE-T&DI Artificial Intelligence in Transportation Committee. She serves as an editor for Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and a member of the editorial advisory board for Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies.