Multi-objective Eco-Routing Model Development and Evaluation for Battery Electric Vehicles

This paper develops and investigates the impacts of multi-objective Nash optimum (user equilibrium) traffic assignment on a large-scale network for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) in a microscopic traffic simulation environment. Eco-routing is a technique that finds the most energy efficient route. ICEV and BEV energy consumption patterns are significantly different with regard to their sensitivity to driving cycles. Unlike ICEVs, BEVs are more energy efficient on low-speed arterial trips compared to highway trips. Different energy consumption patterns require different eco-routing strategies for ICEVs and BEVs. This study found that eco-routing could reduce energy consumption for BEVs but also significantly increases their average travel time. The simulation study found that multi-objective routing could reduce the energy consumption of BEVs by 13.5, 14.2, 12.9, and 10.7 percent, as well as the fuel consumption of ICEVs by 0.1, 4.3, 3.4, and 10.6 percent for "not congested", "slightly congested", "moderately congested", and "highly congested" conditions, respectively. The study also found that multi-objective user equilibrium routing reduced the average vehicle travel time by up to 10.1% compared to the standard user equilibrium traffic assignment for the highly congested conditions, producing a solution closer to the system optimum traffic assignment. The results indicate that the multi-objective eco-routing can effectively reduce fuel/energy consumption with minimum impacts on travel times for both BEVs and ICEVs.