Problem Description

Significance and Background

As the world transitions towards sustainable energy solutions, the demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is on the rise across all vehicle types including cars, trucks, buses, and vans. To support this shift, it's crucial to establish an efficient network of charging stations that would cater to varying demands, capacities, and EV specifications. This competition aims to address the challenge of determining the optimal locations for charging stations. Participants will leverage their data science skills and provided datasets to identify strategic locations that minimize congestion and maximize accessibility, contributing to the promotion of eco-friendly transportation options. Such data science challenges and research based competition have long-term impacts. For example, Google Maps recently released a major update showing the exact location of EV charges, and will also suggest optimal charging locations for road trips and help EV owners find overnight stays with on-site chargers (google blog post). Research and solutions developed like this can boost the next-generation of such technologies.

Problem Definition

As the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) accelerates, an extensive and efficient network of EV charging stations becomes very important. Proper placement of these stations is necessary to ensure accessibility, reduce range anxiety, provide electrification availability, support urban morphology, and promote the widespread adoption of EVs. This year’s challenge aims to identify optimal locations for EV charging stations within the state of Georgia, considering factors such as population density, traffic patterns, proximity to major roads, existing infrastructure, societal and economic constraints, power usage, and projected growth of EV usage, among others.

Challenge Details

Incorporating electric vehicles into the transportation system is crucial for addressing future infrastructure needs and reducing environmental impact. The optimal deployment of EV charging stations is a multi-objective optimization problem. The deployment of EV charging stations can be a complex task due to various factors that need to be considered for optimal placement. This challenge focuses on finding the best locations for EV charging stations across the state of Georgia, considering a range of environmental and logistical variables. EV charging stations in Georgia need to ensure diverse geographical and demographic characteristics. For example, urban areas, and near the interstate might require a higher density of charging stations due to a larger population and higher vehicle usage, whereas rural areas might need strategically placed stations to ensure accessibility over longer distances. Furthermore, traffic patterns, proximity to highways, and points of interest such as shopping centers, workplaces, and residential areas must be factored into the planning. Unlike standard urban infrastructure projects, EV charging stations require integration with the existing power grid. This involves assessing grid capacity, potential for renewable energy integration, and future scalability. The charging stations must also be resilient to weather conditions, considering Georgia’s varied climate which can include everything from humid summers to potential impacts from severe weather events. To address this challenge, participants are asked to identify the most strategic locations for EV charging stations within the Area Of Interest (AOI) of Georgia, considering a range of factors such as population density, traffic patterns, existing infrastructure, social and economic constraints, power usage, and projected growth of EV usage. The challenge requires participants to balance objectives including maximizing accessibility, minimizing congestion, ensuring equitable distribution, and reducing environmental impact. Submissions will be evaluated on their EV charging stations deployment considering factors such as:

• Convenience-based Charging Site Selection: Proximity to popular places such as shopping centers, workplaces, and residential areas.
• Charging Accessibility: Evaluating trajectory connectivity and charging availability.
• Fair Distribution of EV Stations (EV-Equity): Ensuring an equitable distribution of charging stations across different regions.
• Total Travel Distance and Time Metric: Reducing the sum of distances and travel times for EV users.
• Geographical Diversity: Urban vs. rural deployment, terrain considerations.

• Energy Consumption: Assessing the impact on and integration with the current power grid.
• Charging Time Efficiency: Minimizing waiting times for charging.
• Charge Station Usage Efficiency: Optimizing the utilization rate of charging stations.
• Cost-effectiveness: Calculating the utility cost score for deployment.

• Traffic Patterns: Understanding daily, weekly, and seasonal traffic flows. Supporting frequent short-medium trips: Providing resources for frequent short-medium trips, for example, by cars used locally or regionally by rideshares and mobility services (like Uber, Lyft), different mailing and delivery services, and near future fleets of autonomous cars.
• Susceptibility to Power Outage: Minimizing the risk of power outage