A platform to analyze and foster the use of Green Travelling options
The Electric Traveling project is to facilitate the implementation and further development of electromobility in urban and suburban areas. Project outcomes provide the right ICT tools to identify smart electromobility solutions tailored to specific areas and facilitate the introduction of electric vehicles and the required charging stations into the existing transport infrastructure. The project supports travelers in choosing the travel mode (including electric vehicles) and routes (using ICT applications), and also supports local authorities in determining the appropriate directions for the development of electromobility.
The Electric Traveling project was carried out in 2018-2020. It has been financed from the means of the National Centre for Research and Development as a part of the international project within the scope of ERA-NET CoFund Electric Mobility Europe Programme “Electric travelling - platform to support the implementation of electromobility in Smart Cities based on ICT applications". The project was carried out in a research consortium led by Saitec Engineering (Spain), and the partners of the Silesian University of Technology (Poland), Factor CO2 (Spain), DeustoTech (Spain), Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), and Over Morgen (the Netherlands).
The project aims were developing and improve a complex ICT system ETSys to ease the implementation and further development of electromobility in urban and suburban areas based on two very innovative points:
- From a micro perspective, the extension of current routing algorithms and travel planning tools with the focus on electromobility that include, among others, the possibility to prioritize areas of electromobility using a heuristic approach in relation to the road network of the city, daily activity chain optimization algorithm, open for independent ITS input information. These elements result on ETPlanner being more “electric vehicle user” friendly and in a long term perspective to produce a faster growing in the number of “electric vehicle users” in city.
- From a macro perspective, the final integrated ETSys include current, verified elements extended with new several modules that allow: the optimal allocation of charging stations related to many parameters, the analysis of emissions in detail and the comparison of scenarios (ETCharge, ETSim, ETReport). ETSys is a powerful tool to support the resolution of decision-making problems for local authorities (infrastructure managers, public authorities etc.). The implemented functions (among others: Big Data to understand daily travel patterns and their day-to-day fluctuations, LCA tool includes electric vehicles, multi-agent simulation and scenario comparison) may provide a guide in the development of a proper strategy in the design and implementation of the charging infrastructure.
The project product was tested in three selected cities (located in Netherlands, Hungary and Poland).
The final product of the project (ETSys) will include the following integrated modules:
ETPlanner - a door-to-door travel planner with routing optimiser (including greener criteria to minimize environmental impact) ready for EVs and directed to promote this travel mode, includes daily travel chain optimization method and advanced heuristic approach to allow local authorities to prioritize areas of electromobility in the city. The multimodal travel planner allow to collect data from users’ queries.
ETCharge –includes optimal multi-criteria allocation algorithm of charging stations. This module allows to support charging infrastructure planning in cities by estimating current demand of charging stations and forecasting future demands.
ETSim – multi-agent simulator which allows to simulate travelling people on selected area (based on ETPlanner). Simulation results may be compared for different scenarios (current state, new charging point’s location from ETCharge and several incentives).
ETReport – reporting module addresses for local authorities presenting results of simulation. It can serve as a guide suggesting how to develop the transport system to achieve faster steps in the introduction of EVs in the city or in increasing their number.
Expected impacts in long term perspective:
- Increasing number of charging points in urban and suburban areas (as a result of simplification with decision making problem with proper charging stations locations) which will lift electromobility to the transport mainstream
- Increasing of electric vehicles (EVs) users (by the reason of improved connectivity between EVs and the existing infrastructure which will tackle the barriers like people perceptions of EVs from the perspective of limited range, poor infrastructure etc.)
- Increasing the number of people with knowledge about environmental impact of transport and change travel behavior in more pro-ecological solutions (improve public acceptance for electromobility) by using final product of the project (directly and indirectly also)
- Include EVs to current modal split of traffic, also in literature (by increase importance of EVs in traffic – changes of travel behavior). Currently modal split in traffic models very often neglect electric personal cars as separate group of means of transport (it is not the same like conventional personal cars)
- Pollution and noise reduction in urban areas (reducing Europe’s carbon emissions, improving air quality, decreasing noise pollution and supporting economic growth by increasing EVs percent in travels)
- mproving current transport systems according to real need of travelling persons based on Big Data collected from system’s users
- Greater integration of existing transport systems in cities (proposed system is a complex solution which can be connected to others currently existing in the cities)
- Accelerating electromobility development in Europe (proposed system will be universal, related to some input data which can be collected also in different parts of Europe, it means ETSys may be implemented in other cities).
Project website: http://www.electrictravelling.com/index.html
