2024 Volume 75 Issue 2 Pages 37-48
Electric vehicles are attracting attention from the perspective of environmental protection. However, their short cruising range and insufficient charging infrastructure have hindered their widespread use. The home delivery industry is less affected by these characteristics, and demonstration experiments are already underway to replace delivery trucks with electric vehicles. Various studies have been conducted on electric vehicle routing problems. In most of these studies, delivery routes have been considered focusing on the travel distances of the electric vehicles. Recently, the problem of electricity supply has been changing due to the spread of solar power generation. Electricity market prices and carbon dioxide emissions during electricity generation now vary dramatically according to the time of day . The present paper considers the problem of minimizing costs and carbon dioxide emissions in electric vehcles used for deliveries, rather than the problem of the travel distance. The present paper proposes a mathematical model that extends the model of Schiffer and Walther〔1〕to calculate charging costs and carbon dioxide emissions even in situations where electricity prices and carbon dioxide emissions depend on the time of day. It is possible to show appropriate routes by using the proposed mathematical model. In addition, the tradeoff among charging costs, carbon dioxide emissions, and travel distance is also discussed. As an application example of the model, the characteristics of the charging stations used and the reductions in charging costs and carbon dioxide emissions from electric vehicles in numerical experiments assuming real regions are also shown.
