Electric vehicle charging strategies for Urban freight transport: concept and typology

Abstract

Charging services play an important role in encouraging the growth of the electric freight vehicle (EFV) market. Understanding charging strategies and their influence on charging behavior is crucial in the deployment of charging services. Unfortunately, existing charging strategy definitions and types are incoherent and incomplete. This conceptual paper synthesizes the perspectives found in literature on the charging strategy concept, and provides a definition based on Orlikowski's structurational model of technology. A two-level charging strategy typology is proposed. The first distinguishes between decision-making modes: schedule-or trigger-based decisions. The second identifies when and where charging is used during a vehicle operating cycle. The result is three schedule-based charging strategies: downtime, opportunity, and intrusive charging, and one trigger-based emergency charging. The selection of strategy depends on the EFV operations, the availability of charging systems and services, as well as the driver behaviour. The influence of the strategy on enhancing the EFV, the carrier operations and business model is discussed. Charging behaviour, especially in location and timing, is shown to be strongly dependent on the strategy. While downtime charging is considered the default strategy, carriers should employ a variety of complementary strategies to enhance the capability of their vehicles and improve the financial viability of the operations. Carriers should also have an emergency charging strategy on hand in case of unforeseen situations.

Booking Public Charging: User Preferences and Behavior towards Public Charging Infrastructure with a Reservation Option

“…Philipsen et al used qualitative interviews and a quantitative comparison to analyze user charging behavior compared to refueling with fossil fuels in traditional vehicles [28]. Teoh examined charging strategies for urban freight via a two-level charging strategy [29]. However, despite this breadth of research on public charging infrastructure a key question remains: what kind of charging infrastructure is suitable for the needs of urban residents in densely populated urban areas and how shall this infrastructure be provided?…”

Regional Electrified Logistics: Review of research projects, academic publications, and perspective of the industry

“…The second article, Teoh (2022), targets how different charging strategies affect logistics companies' business models. The author lists several aspects that need to be considered when addressing charging strategies and the effect on business models: location of battery during charging, the motion of the vehicle during charging, charging interface, charging power, and charging modes.…”

Different Charging Strategies for Electric Vehicle Fleets in Urban Freight Transport

“…For professional transport companies, this study shows five aspects for the transition towards zero emission transport. First, a fleet of multiple heavy vehicles requires heavy duty charging infrastructure-which is expensive-but might also lead to capacity issues at the local grid around charging locations [27,51]. Even though 2030 is still almost a decade away, network aggravation is a relevant issue today.…”

“…A requirement is therefore that public charging stations are accessible and easy to use [55]. In this regard, flexible use of charging infrastructure that takes into account user needs is required for public charging station operators [51]. More flexible use of a reservation system, real time occupancy updates of charging stations, a virtual queue, flexible pricing and a penalty for not showing up (at the right time) are found important in the considered case study.…”