Modelling energy consumption of electric freight vehicles in urban pickup/delivery operations: analysis and estimation on a real-world dataset

• Published in: Transportation research. Part D, Transport and environment Vol. 65; pp. 658 - 673
• Main Authors: Fiori, Chiara, Marzano, Vittorio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2018
• Subjects: Electric freight vehicles; Energy consumption/recovery; Last-mile pickup/delivery; Energy consumption/recovery; Electric freight vehicles; Last-mile pickup/delivery
• ISSN: 1361-9209; 1879-2340
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2018.09.020

•Development of an energy consumption model for Electric Freight Vehicles.•Real-world data collection during pickup/delivery operations of EFVs in Rome.•Calibration and validation of the energy consumption of EFVs using real-world data.•Impact evaluation of the instantaneous weight on-board on the energy consumption.•Flexible and reliable modeling of the energy consumption for an EFV fleet. Electric Freight Vehicles (EFVs) are a promising and increasingly popular alternative to conventional trucks in urban pickup/delivery operations. A key concerned research topic is to develop trip-based Tank-to-Wheel (TTW) analyses/models for EFVs energy consumption: notably, there are just a few studies in this area. Leveraging an earlier research on passenger electric vehicles, this paper aims at filling this gap by proposing a microscopic backward highly-resolved power-based EFVs energy consumption model (EFVs-ECM). The model is estimated and validated against real-world data, collected on a fleet of five EFVs in the city centre of Rome, for a total of 144 observed trips between subsequent pickup/delivery stops. Different model specifications are tested and contrasted, with promising results, in line with previous findings on electric passenger vehicles.