Phase separation induces congestion waves in electric vehicle charging

Abstract

Electric vehicles may dominate motorized transport in the next decade, yet the impact of the collective dynamics of electric mobility on long-range traffic flow is still largely unknown. We demonstrate a type of congestion that arises if charging infrastructure is limited or electric vehicle density is high. This congestion emerges solely through indirect interactions at charging infrastructure by queue-avoidance behavior that -counterintuitively -induces clustering of occupied charging stations and phase separation of the flow into free and congested stations. The resulting congestion waves always propagate forward in the direction of travel, in contrast to typically backward-propagating congestion waves known from traditional traffic jams. These results may guide the planning and design of charging infrastructure and decision support applications in the near future.

Collective dynamics of capacity-constrained ride-pooling fleets

“…Interactions of individual travelers with each other, with their environment or with transportation services give rise to complex emergent mobility patterns and collective dynamics [2][3][4][5][6]. Statistical physics approaches have helped to reveal universal patterns in the scaling of human mobility [2,7], characterize recurring aspects of the structure of mobility and transportation networks [8][9][10][11][12], and explain fundamental properties of congestion and its persistence across a variety of systems [3,[13][14][15][16][17]. Currently, human mobility is transforming towards new modes of transport that are increasingly self-organized and networked [2,[4][5][6]18].…”