Decision support and strategies for the electrification of commercial fleets

Electric vehicles have proven to be a viable mobility alternative that leads to emissions reductions and hence the decarbonization of the transportation sector. Nevertheless, electric vehicle adoption is progressing slowly. Vehicle fleets are a promising starting point for increased market penetration. With this study, we address the issue of fleet electrification by analyzing a data set of 81 empirical mobility patterns of commercial fleets. We conduct a simulation to design a decision support system for fleet managers evaluating which fleets have a good potential for electrification and how fleets can improve the number of successful electric trips by adapting their charging strategy. We consider both heuristics and optimized scheduling. Our results show that a large share of fleets can score a close to optimal charging schedule using a simple charging heuristic. For all other fleets, we provide a decision mechanism to assess the potential of smart charging mechanisms.