TOPIC
This study investigates the operation of a novel electric vehicles (EVs) charging service mode, i.e., crowdsourced mobile charging service for EVs, whereby a crowdsourcing platform is established to arrange suppliers (crowdsourced chargers) to deliver charging service to customers’ electric vehicles (parked EVs) at low-battery levels. From the platform operator’s perspective, we aim to determine the optimal operation strategies for mobile charging crowdsourcing platforms to achieve specific objectives. A mathematical modeling framework is developed to capture the interactions among supply, demand, and service operations in the crowdsourced mobile charging market. To design an efficient solution method to solve the formulated model, we first analyze the model properties by rigorously proving that a crucial variable set for operating the mobile charging crowdsourcing system includes charging price, commission control, and period-specific aggregate demand control. Besides, we provide both an equivalent condition and a necessary condition for checking the feasibility of these crucial variables. On top of this, we construct a search tree according to the operation periods in a day to solve the optimal operation strategies, wherein a non-dominated principle is adopted as an accelerating technique in the searching process. The solution obtained from the proposed solution algorithm is proved to be sufficiently close to the actual global optimal solutions of the formulated model up to the resolution of the discretization scheme adopted. Numerical examples provide evidence verifying the model’s validity and the solution method’s efficiency. Overall, the research outcome of this work can offer service operators structured and valuable guidelines for operating mobile charging crowdsourcing platforms.
ABOUT THE LECTURER
Dr. Wang, Zhiwei (David) is an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received his PhD from the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include optimal transportation infrastructure design, analyzing interaction between urban development and transportation planning, public transportation operation and design. He has published more than 90 articles on the top transportation journals. He serves as an Area Associate Editor for Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems, Associate Editor for Transportation Letters. He received Fred Burggraf Award from Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Research Councils of the United States in 2016; Tan Chin Tuan Exchange Fellowship in Engineering at NTU in 2017.