A Linearized Approach for the Electric Light Commercial Vehicle Routing Problem Combined with Charging Station Siting and Power Distribution Network Assessment

Transportation electrification has demonstrated a significant position on power utilities and logistic companies, in terms of assets operation and management. Under this context, this paper presents the problem of seeking feasible and good quality routes for electric light commercial vehicles considering battery capacity and charging station siting on the power distribution system. Different transportation patterns for goods delivery are included, such as the capacitated vehicle routing problem and the shortest path problem for the last mile delivery. To solve the problem framed within a mixed integer linear mathematical model, the GAMS software is used and validated on a test instance conformed by a 19-customer transportation network, spatially combined with the IEEE 34 nodes power distribution system. The sensitivity analysis, performed during the computational experiments, show the behavior of the variables involved in the logistics operation, i.e., routing cost for each transport pattern. The trade-off between the battery capacity, the cost of the charging station installation, and energy losses on the power distribution system is also shown, including the energy consumption cost created by the charging operation.

Automated summary

This study aims to find feasible and high-quality routes for electric light commercial vehicles, considering factors such as battery capacity and charging station siting. Through a mixed integer linear mathematical model, the behavior of key variables in logistics operations and the trade-off between power losses, charging station costs, and energy consumption costs are demonstrated.