Evaluation of policy options supporting electric vehicles in city logistics: a case study

Due to the restriction of movement of heavy-duty vehicles (e.g.trucks), most cities have started to implement urban consolidation centers to reduce the negative impact of carbon emission. Accordingly, this study focuses on the city logistics problem with respect to policy decisions regarding the use of light commercial vehicles through urban consolidation schemes in a way to minimise carbon emissions and, thus, total transportation costs. In particular, this study has developed a mathematical model to minimise total transportation costs including routing costs, vehicle fixed costs, emission costs, and zone entry fees. The proposed model is solved using a modified ant colony optimisation (MACO) technique. The optimal results are obtained within CPU time, and results are validated using the ACO algorithm and the Cplex solver. Meanwhile, different supporting policies are introduced, and computational experiments are executed on a real-life case study. Results show that the purchase subsidy and zone entry fee are significant considerations when promoting electric vehicles (EVs) in city logistics.