Aggregate energy consumption model for electrical vehicles at signalized intersections

Development of an energy-efficient signal control system that minimizes the total electricity usage of all electrical vehicles (EVs) running through intersections has been considered one of the most effective approaches for addressing the EV energy-efficiency problem when EVs gain significant market penetration. The critical first step in developing such a system is to derive an aggregate energy consumption function, which can serve as an objective function for energy-based signal optimization. The research described here addresses this challenge by deriving an aggregate energy consumption model (AECM) for EVs at an intersection. The proposed AECM was developed by integrating an individual EV's energy consumption model with a simplified car-following model; this described the trajectory of each EV by assuming that its driving maneuvers could be simplified into four phases: cruising, decelerating, idling, and accelerating. The proposed model has been evaluated by using detailed vehicle trajectory data provided by the Next Generation Simulation program. The evaluation results indicated consistency between the energy consumption estimated by the proposed AECM and the disaggregated individual EV's energy consumption model. The proposed aggregate energy consumption function is expected to be used for searching for an optimal signal control strategy that could minimize total energy consumption at a signalized intersection.