Unintended Consequence of the Electric Vehicle Revolution

United Kingdom | January 9, 2019
Reading Time : 14 minutes

Presented at the 25th ITS World Congress held in Copenhagen, Denmark September 17-21, 2018.

Co-authored with Tim Grahamslaw

Abstract

Through the news and media, road users are becoming more aware that we are now seeing a transition from the traditional petrol and diesel fuelled cars to the increasing use of Electric Vehicles (EVs). By September 2017 we saw in the region of 133,000 EVs on the UK road network. One key challenge that we currently face is that of drivers breaking down as a result of running out of fuel, how will this new fleet impact on this?

This paper will consider whether we expect the number of EVs breaking down as a result of running out of electric charge to increase the numbers of breakdowns on the network. The paper considers the scale of this particular problem and reviews what mitigation measures could be considered in order to change the mind-set of road users and influence the change of behaviour. It provides a series of steps that should be introduced by network operators, government organisations and vehicle manufacturers in order to ensure that the road network performs safely and efficiently with minimal negative impacts.

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