Planning charging infrastructure for plug-in electric vehicles in city centers

Installing charging facilities in existing parking lots in city centers is considered an effective measure to encourage the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV). This article is concerned with the problem of locating these facilities so as to minimize the total system cost. The problem is formulated as a fixed charge facility location model with charging capacity constraints. The proposed model extends the existing work by allowing unserved demands and considering drivers' preference for familiar parking lots. Accordingly, inconvenience costs are introduced for unserved demands and for those who have to change their parking lots in order to charge at work. The proposed model is not only always feasible, but also introduces a pricing mechanism so that the level of service (measured by the cost of unserved demands) can be traded off with the infrastructure cost. In addition, a stochastic version of the proposed model is developed to address the effects of uncertain PEV market penetration rate on the planning of charging facilities. A case study is conducted to analyze the sensitivity of the models to different cost components, and to compare the results of the stochastic and deterministic models.