The impact of quick charging stations on the route planning of Electric Vehicles

Many companies have a growing interest in utilizing alternative fuel vehicles in their logistics operations due to increasing environmental concerns in developed countries. Consequently, green vehicle routing problems have attracted more attention in the literature. The Electric Vehicle Routing Problem (EVRP) is one such problem where the customers are served using an electric vehicle (EV) fleet. In this problem, the energy on the battery of the EV is consumed proportionally with distance traveled and the EV may need recharging en route in order to complete its tour. In this study, we consider a variant of EVRP where the customers are associated with service time windows and the stations may be equipped with normal and quick charging systems. In the quick charge case, the battery is recharged with the same energy in a shorter time but at a higher cost. Our objective is to minimize energy costs while operating minimum number of vehicles. We formulate the mathematical programming models of the single and multiple charger cases and solve them using a commercial solver. Our aim is to investigate the complexity of the problems and analyze the potential benefits associated with the quick charging option.