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A bstract-Understanding and predicting charging behaviour implemented in predictive models is essential, but despite
of electric vehicles' users is essential for the appropriate design of considerable research efforts have been carried out, work
charging services and for the implementation aggregator services towards this goal is still needed. So far charging behaviour
mediating between electric vehicle drivers, electricity markets, research has been mainly either simply descriptive (e.g. [8]),
distribution system operator, and transmission system operator. aimed at testing psychological models unsuitable for
Research into actionable charging behaviour insights to be implementation for quantitative prediction [9, 1 0], or when
implemented in predictive models has so far been modest. The
aimed at charging choice behaviour predictive models reliant
present paper intends to contribute at the development of
on choice experiments based on hypothetical choice situations
predictive models of charging patterns for operational
around future smart charging scenarios (e.g. [1 1 , 1 2]). One
implementation. It proposes hazard-based analysis of the gap
notable exception to this trend is the work by Zoepf et al who
times between charging events model with time dependent
use real word charging and driving data from monitored
covariates in order to investigate which set of potential covariates
that will enable an eventual formulation of short-term predictive
vehicles to estimate mixed logit for charging occurrence at the
model of the timing of charging events. Empirical estimation of
end of a trip, using as explanatory variables the state of charge
the hazard model shows that both monitored vehicle state at the end of a trip and travel patterns 'attributes (e.g., trip
variables (e.g. state of charge, cumulative average driving speed) distance, time to next departure, trip end time) [1 3].
and individual characteristics significantly affect the Additionally, the inclusion of insights from psychological
instantaneous rate of occurrence of charging events. studies of charging behaviour into models for quantitative
prediction is attempted by Daina et ai, who model drivers'
Keywords- electric vehicles, electric vehicles charging typical charging frequency and state of charge (SOC) before
behaviour, charging behaviour prediction, hazards models. charging as function of both their typical travel patterns and
perceived charging motives [1 4].
I. INTRODUCTION
Against these background the achievement of an actionable The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Firstly, a
understanding of charging behaviour, which could be methodological section introduces hazard based models with
time dependent covariates and discusses the issues' in applying where Zij(t) is a covariates' vector which also includes time
them to the problem at hand. I the same session a subsection is varying covariates. Note that in this case the gap times between
devoted to present the datasets used in the study. Then, a charging events are no longer identically distributed and the
section presents and discusses the resulting estimates for the hazard model is not longer strictly speaking a proportional one.
hazard model parameters. Lastly, the paper concludes with a
section summarising the salient points and highlighting the Modelling both unobserved heterogeneity and time
implications of the results. covariates is problematic when time dependent covariates are
not strictly exogenous [1 7]. The strict exogeneity condition as
II. METHODOLOGY expressed by Wooldridge [1 7]. is
SOC within these gap times. These are the time dependent distributions of SOC just before charging, distance travelled
explanatory variables whose effect on the instantaneous between charging events and average speed of travel between
charging risk is tested. Fig. 1 shows the distribution of times charging events.
between char in events over our sam Ie as well the
r-
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10 12 14 16 18
"I 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
Time elapsed betwenn charging events (gap times) hours SOC at start of charging event
0.Q18
0.06
__ distance ootween charging events(when non zero)
0.Q14
0.Q12
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0.004
0.Q1
0.002
140 160 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Distance between charging events km (when non zero) Average speed between charging events kmlhour (intances below 10kmlhour are excluded)
Fig. 1. Distributions of intercharging times and monitored vehicle variables between charing events
From a questionnaire that was administered to the main In the empirical estimation of the hazard model the effects
drivers of the EVs as part of Low carbon London trial a of the following main drivers' attributes were tested: gender,
number of drivers' attributes were available, including: basic age, typical EV use purpose and a range anxiety indicator. Fig.
demographics and information regarding typical EV use 2 shows sununary statistics for these variables.
purposes and well as indicators of their range anxiety level.
'1
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Female
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Fig. 2. Distribution of driver's characteritics and their stated typical EV use patterns
III. HAZARD FUNCTION ESTIMATION'S RESUSLTS small but significantly different from zero (corr. coefficient -
0.2 P value 0.00). Testing the two specifications enables
We estimate two specifications for the hazard function. understanding whether the two driving variables or the
Specification one uses as time dependent variables the sununary SOC indicator give a better fit. Both specifications
cwnulative driving distance and the cwnulative average speed one and specification two include as fixed (i.e. non time
over the duration of the time interval between charging events. dependent) explanatory variables main drivers characteristics
Specification two uses the SOC value instead. The reason why and typical EV usage patterns as stated by drivers themselves
we use separate specifications is that the SOC level is related to as well as the range anxiety indicator reported in Fig. 2.
both the previous variables. Indeed cumulative distance and
SOC are significantly albeit not so strongly correlated in our Tables 1 and 2 show the estimates of the covariate effects
sample (corr. coefficient -0.6 p value 0.00), whereas the on the hazard function for specifications one and two
correlation of SOC with the cumulative average speed is very respectively.
Variable coef exp(coef) st. error (coef) robust st. error (coef) z stat p value
Cum. distance
0.02 1 1.02 1 0.002 0.004 5.743 9.30E-09
Cum. average speed
0.033 1.034 0.003 0.005 6.5 14 7.30E-ll
Main driver female
0.002 1.002 0. 154 0.296 0.006 1.00E+00
Main driver aged <=45
-0.472 0.624 0. 148 0.3 13 - 1.509 l.30E-01
Range Anxiety Ind.
-0.029 0.97 1 0.005 0.008 -3.685 2.30E-04
Use EV to go to work
-0.492 0.6 12 0.09 1 0.233 -2. 1 15 3.40E-02
Use EV to go to School
-0.449 0.639 0.243 0. 187 -2.393 I.70E-02
N. of observations 9 155 (i.e. measurements of the time dependent variables);N. of charging events 600; N. of vehiclesidrivers 20; Likelihood ratio test=429 on 7 df.
Variable coef exp(coef) st. error (coef) robust st. error (coef) z stat p value
SOC %
-0.065 0.937 0.003 0.005 - 12. 167 0.000
Main driver female
0.292 1.339 0. 166 0.447 0.654 0.5 10
Main driver aged <=45
- 1.397 0.247 0. 159 0.423 -3.300 0.00 1
Range Anxiety Ind.
-0.044 0.957 0.006 O.ot5 -3.054 0.002
Use EV to go to work
-0.489 0.6 13 0.094 0.3 19 - 1.537 0. 120
Use EV to go to School
-0.474 0.623 0.247 0.300 - 1.58 1 0. 1 10
N. of observations 9 155 (i.e. measurements of the time dependent variables);N. of charging events 600; N. of vehiclesidrivers 20; Likelihood ratio test=886 on 6 df
From specification one' s estimation result we observe that Main drivers aged 45 or younger have an instantaneous
both cumulative distance and average speed have significant charging event rate 75% lower than older drivers;
effects on the hazard function (i.e. the instantaneous charging
event rate). Amongst the fixed effects included in the
An increase by 1 unit of the range anxiety indicator (the
specification above gender and age are not significant. unit of such indicator is miles, see Fig. 2), leads to a 4%
Specification two more than doubles the likelihood ratio decrease in the instantaneous charging rate.
showing that using SOC instead of distance and speed greatly The fust two observations in the list above seem
increases the goodness of fit. However in specification two the reasonable, but the last may appear counterintuitive. Indeed
significance of typical EV use purpose is reduced, while one would expect that having higher battery levels reduces the
drivers 'age become significant. The variability in significance risk of occurrence of changing event. We may also expect that
of the drivers' characteristics in the two specifications is younger people, more prone to errands may charge more
expected given that the sample of drivers is very small (only erratically and less frequently than older individuals that are
20). However it is reassuring to note that the signs of the more likely to have regular patterns enabling them to top-up
effects are stable over the two specifications. their EV battery each night. However, one would expect that
The significant effects (p.value <=0.05) in the two individuals more inclined to rage anxiety would charge more
specifications are more easily interpreted looking at the frequently, not less as these results seem to suggest. One could
exponential of the estimated models' parameters. The speculate that individuals who are more affected by range
exponential of a coefficient represents the hazard ratio for the anxiety tend to use their vehicle less frequently and charge it
corresponding predictor variable. By subtracting one from this only before they use it. However such hypothesis would need
from this ratio one obtains the relative variation of the hazard to be tested further.
give one unit of change of the predictor. Thus the significant In general, the effects of drivers characteristics obtained
effects in specification one can be interpreted as flows: here should be interpreted cautiously because of the sample
An increase by one unit in travelling distance (i.e. an drivers sample at hand. Rather than consider them conclusive,
increase by 1 km) increases the instantaneous risk of a one should interpret them as warnings when developing a
charging event by 2%; predictive model for time-time-to-charging event. Individual
characteristics may play a substantive role and if data regarding
An increase by one unit in travelling speed (i.e. an increase drivers is available in addition to SOC and driving information
by 1 kmlhour) increases the instantaneous risk of a feeds from vehicles, their substantive effect should be tested.
charging event by 3%;
IV. CONCLUSIONS
An increase by 1 unit of the range anxiety indicator (the
This paper, for the fust time to the authors' knowledge, has
unit of such indicator is miles, see Fig. 2), leads to a 3%
used hazard-based duration analysis with time dependent
decrease in the instantaneous charging rate.
covariates to analyse real world charging behaviour with the
Habitual EV Commuters have an instantaneous charging aim to identify possible predictors for the dynamic prediction
event rate 39% lower than the others; of time-to charging events. The motivation for working
towards such prediction models lies in the necessity for
Those drivers using the EV for education purposes have an charging service providers to be able to reliably predict the
instantaneous charging event rate 36% lower than the timing of charging demand for effective participation in
others; electricity markets.
Given that the specification two shows the best fit, we consider The estimated parameters of the hazard model of gap times
it as our main model and we thus interpret comment more in between EV charging events show that the time path of a
depth the corresponding results: vehicle state of charge as well as its cumulative distance and
An increase by one unit in the observed SOC level leads to average speed are strong predictors of the instantaneous rate of
a 6% decrease in the charging event instantaneous risk of a charging events. Drivers characteristics were also found
charging event occurring; affecting the risk of charging events.
The implication of the findings in this study are that a approach for charging service provider," Transportation Research
Record, vol. Forthcoming,2015.
predictive system for the "time to charging event" should
ideally capture and use instantaneous vehicles parameters (e.g. [ 13] S. Zoepf,D. MacKenzie, D. Keith, and W. Chernicoff, "Charging
Choices and Fuel Displacement in a Large-Scale Demonstration of
sate of charge and cumulative driving distances) but should not Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles," Transportation Research
neglect other "modulating factors", such as drivers' Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, vol. 2385,
demographics or range anxiety. In order to test how substantive pp. 1- 10, 12/0 11 2013.
are such modulating factors in prediction, larger drivers' [ 14] N. Daina,A. Sivakumar,and 1. Polak, "Patent and latent predictors
sample need to be adopted. As EVs adoption rates are steadily of electric vehicle charging behaviour," Transportation Research
Record, vol. Forthcoming,2015.
increasing, such data will be increasingly easier to obtain
without need of ad hoc electric vehicle trials. As next step of [ 15] R. J. a. Cook, "The Statistical Analysis of Recurrent Events," in
Statistics for Biology and Health, F. L. a. Jerald and SpringerLink,
the present work we intend to investigate how substantively
Eds.,ed,2007.
important individual characteristics are in prediction and thus
[ 16] T. M. Therneau, P. M. Grambsch, and V. S. Pankratz, "Penalized
whether it is worth investing effort to collect the associated Survival Models and Frailty," Journal of Computational and
data in an operational implementation. Graphical Statistics, vol. 12,pp. 156- 175,2003.
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