Combinatorial Optimal Location Design of Charging Stations based on Multi-agent Simulation

In recent years, the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) has become increasingly desirable from an environmental perspective. However, it is important to develop suitable charging equipment and infrastructure, as EVs tend to have shorter cruising distances than gasoline-powered vehicles. Various data-driven methods have been proposed for the placement of charging stations (CSs). To date, however, there have been few simulation-driven approaches that can take account of the microscale interactions among vehicles. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an efficient placement method based on multi-agent traffic simulations with an improved scoring function. In addition, as the number of CSs increase in proportion to the spread of EVs, we solve a multiple location design problem formulated as a combinatorial optimization technique. Numerical experiments were conducted on a realistic network in the central part of Wakayama Prefecture in Japan, and it was shown that the proposed method could improve the performance indicator of CS placement compared with the conventional method. Furthermore, the scenario of multiple CS installations at one time demonstrated that good combinations could be obtained.