Optimal Localization of Charging Stations for EVs: A Preliminary Study for the Transmilenio’s Trunk Lines in Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

The climate of the planet is going through some mayor changes. Most of the climate scientists agree upon anthropological activities being the main cause of this, due to the CO2 and other GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Road transportation also contributes to air pollution and to the local pollution in big cities, due to the emissions of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and polluting gases such as NOx, CO, SO2 among others. Those problems and the continuous increase in emission limits given by regulators all over the world, are demanding for a change in the current transportation paradigm, leading to a completely electrified solution for both the private and public vehicles. This is particularly true for those cities that relay thoroughly on bus system as main public form of transport. Even though the Colombian capital, Bogota, is a big city with about 10 million people, it does not have a subway or other electric type of massive transport systems, but it has developed a big and articulated bus system. With the aim of shifting part of this system, namely the trunk lines of the Transmilenio company, to an electric one, this work analyses the problematic of the charging needs. To calculate the energy consumptions, computational simulations on two lines, C29 and B11, have been performed based on three different solutions proposed to address the charging problem. The aim of this work is the comparison of different technical solutions to find the best one in financial terms (also in the form of type and dimension of the bus accumulators in a true first principles thinking) and the estimation and inclusion of the buses’ cost.