Leveraging Real-World Data Sets for QoE Enhancement in Public Electric Vehicles Charging Networks

This work targets enhancing the quality of charging experience in Electric Vehicle (EV) Public Charging Infrastructure (PCI) networks. The estimation uncertainty of waiting times at charging stations (CSs) hinders the proliferation of such networks and, hence, decelerates EV adoption. Currently, most EV owners prefer to use private chargers; thus, overloading the energy distribution network leaving PCIs under-utilized. Consequently, it becomes important for PCI operators to provide customers with accurate waiting time estimates at various CSs; therefore, allowing them to make more informed CS selections. The per-CS EV waiting times reveal possible CS overloads, which, when frequently repetitive, indicate the need for PCI up-scaling to satisfy increasing demands; hence, ensuring elevated customer QoE. This paper leverages recent real-world data to unveil the statistical properties of EV charging times that, unlike existing studies, are found to be best captured by an Erlang- ${k}$ distribution. Also, the per-CS charging request arrival processes are characterized under various scheduling policies. It is established hereafter that CSs can be accurately modelled as single-server queuing systems. Finally, extensive simulations are conducted to verify the accuracy of the proposed models and provide further insights into the waiting time performance achieved by each of the adopted scheduling policies.

I. Introduction

Towards the end of 2021, Germany, the proud land of leading automotive industry manufacturers (e.g., Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Porsche) declared the end of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles in 2030. Other major industrial nations (e.g., United States, Canada, France, China, etc) are also aiming at stamping out ICE-driven vehicles by 2050 with the objective of boldly combating climate change. Indeed, over the past decade, carbon emissions by the transportation sector have been steadily growing and, today, has reached unprecedented levels that are on the verge from becoming irreversible. Moreover, recently, vehicle owners’ have expressed an upsurge of concerns in view of the volatile and ascending fossil fuel costs. Circumstances as such blended with oil spurs, peak oil anxiety and politics, are throttling up governments worldwide to shift from ICE to Electric Vehicles (EVs).