Planning for public charging infrastructure for electrification of shared mobility: a case study of Noida U. P.

Abstract

Rapid population growth and urbanisation has made cities hubs of economic activities, and travel plays a vitalV role in connecting various activities as a system. People travel through different types of modes such a car or a two-wheeler which can be a private vehicle or by shared rikshaws or taxi and other mode of public transport. With increasing population and economic development, vehicle ownership has also increased. Rapid increase in motorisation and high concentration of vehicles in cities come at social costs such as air pollution, accidents, and climatic impacts. According to CPCB, around 30-50% of pollution caused is due to road transport in India. India was one of 196 countries who signed the Paris Agreement, which seeks to restrict global warming to less than 200 degrees Celsius, ideally 1.50 degrees Celsius, relative to preindustrial levels. The Paris Declaration on Electro-Mobility and Climate Change called for intervention in the pursuit of electric mobility. The National Electric Vehicle Mission 2030 of India aims for 30 percent of vehicles in India to be electric by 2030. To tackle the issue of pollution caused by ICE vehicles there is a need to switch to shared mode of transport (public transport) and cleaner options of operating road transport. Electric vehicles are a clean and sustainable alternative mode of travel. Charging infrastructure is critical to EV deployment. The upfront cost of an EV is greater than that of an ICE vehicle, but unlike private cars, which are idle 95 percent of the time, the payback cycle for service vehicles / shared mobility is much shorter because of the large rise in vehicle usage. Thus, in this thesis study on lectrification of shared mobility is done. The Aim of the study is to develop an area-specific and location-oriented strategy in order to address the spatial challenges and behavioural issues in the electrification of shared mobility. Firstly, study of policy environment related to electric vehicle deployment at National Level and State level is done. The policy review gives an understanding of the national aims and targets along with the incentive and infrastructure provision strategy. Uttar Pradesh was one of the first few states to launch a state EV scheme, and it also has the country's largest motor vehicle customer base, so the state's electric vehicle industry is expected to boom. To do the study in detail, the city of Noida which is located in Uttar Pradesh and is a part of National Capital Region is selected. An assessment of the current shared mobility supply and demand in the city is done. The shared mobility usage in the city is assessed by primary survey data analysis, where the shared mobility users are targeted. The geographical distribution of trips in the city along with the shared mobility modal share, average distance and time travelled by shared mobility users is studied. Along with the shared mobility user’s, the operators’ perspective is also analysed. There is a large informal base spread in the city of currently used electric shared mobility which are electric rickshaws. Economic aspect of operating an EV shared mobility is studied where it is found the average monthly earnings of an autorickshaw operator is less that E-Rickshaw operator if the working hours remain the same. But the E-rickshaw community faces several issues related to lesser working hours, limited travel distance etc because of operator’s range anxiety which impacts their earnings and limit the use of electric shared mobility in the city which has a larger environmental impact. To study the typical operator’s behaviour and identify limitations and issues, an Erickshaw operator was tracked using an android app. The app provided the GPS location of the operator every 2 seconds. Taking various assumptions and assessing the operator's travel pattern along with some focus group interview, quantification of the range anxiety was done. It is then concluded that at a threshold distance if the charging infrastructure is provided the operator can increase the working hours and travel a large distance range. Charging infrastructure is a part of a big electric vehicle ecosystem, various stakeholders are involved. In this thesis, a major focus is on the user and operator of electric shared mobility. After the analysis, plausible charging infrastructure provision that is an EV charging station and battery swapping are considered along with location priority considering operator preferences, charging behaviour, user travel pattern and landuse. A comparison of both the infrastructure is done where it is concluded that in the case of service vehicle or shared mobility, battery swapping is proven to be better than battery charging as it decreases the total cost of ownership of electric shared mobility and increases operating hours. While operators may be receptive to switching to EV, they may not want to struggle through charging. While other shared mobility such as CNG auto-rickshaws takes about 10-20 minutes to refuel, E-rickshaw charging takes about 10 times this duration. On the other hand, battery swapping takes a maximum of 10 min and it not only will eliminate this unnecessary waiting time, reduce the size of batteries in vehicles, and ensure an increased operating time.