Stochastic Traffic assignment with Electric Vehicles: a convex optimization approach

Electric vehicles and charging stations are increasing worldwide to reduce emissions at the city level. In order to analyze traffic flows and quantify the demand for energy recharge, it is necessary to model users' choices considering different kinds of traffic flows. In this paper, attention is focused on the formalization of the joint traffic and energy demand assignment conditions over a traffic network in presence of electric vehicles (EVs). Specifically, the so-called stochastic user equilibrium (SUE) conditions are used to define the steady state behaviour of a generic traffic network in which some arcs are equipped with EV charging stations. A convex optimization problem is defined and solved, which is equivalent to the solution of the nonlinear and nonconvex set of SUE conditions under a multinomial Logit user's choice function. A real case study, related to a touristic area in the Liguria Region (from Genova airport to Portofino), is considered.