A data-driven travel demand model to predict electric vehicle energy consumption: focusing on the rural demographic in the UK

ABSTRACT This paper presents a 7-day Travel Demand Model (TDM) for UK rural areas to aid the Electric Vehicle (EV) transition in these regions. Utilising data from both the UK Census Survey and UK National Travel Survey (NTS), private passenger vehicle travel patterns for a rural village in the Peak District National Park (UK), were modelled. This model is adaptable to any rural community within the UK, requiring only publicly available information on households and vehicles for that community. Using a novel approach through the development of lifestyle scenarios to understand the required household activities, the TDM incorporates five different trip purposes as the building blocks for a vehicle’s activity. Over a period of one week, 13,520 miles were driven by 84 vehicles across 49 households, that shows an EV fleet serving this community would consume 3562 kWh energy per week.