Optimal Location Determination of Electric Vehicle Charging Stations: A Case Study on Turkey’s Most Preferred Highway

Abstract

Today, electric vehicles are seen as one of the most suitable and environmentally friendly alternatives to internal combustion engine vehicles. An important issue related to the dissemination of electric vehicles is the location of the vehicle charging network and specifically the optimum location selection of the charging stations. Generally, most of the studies focus on popular destinations such as city centers, shopping areas, bus stations, and airports. Although these places are often used in normal life, they can usually provide an adequate solution for daily charging needs due to the number of alternative charging stations. However, finding adequate charging stations is not possible in intercity travels especially in highways. In this paper, we proposed a decision model to determine the location of electric car charging stations in highways. We create an optimization model to decide the optimum locations for the charging stations that can meet the customer demands on the Istanbul-Ankara highway. The proposed model determines optimum charging stations that enable passengers traveling with their electric vehicles to travel in Istanbul-Ankara highway in the shortest time.