Simulating The Driving and Charging of Electric Minibus Taxis: A Case Study for Stellenbosch
Date
2023
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
IWACP
Abstract
The Global North is increasing the drive for the electrification of the mobility industry. In sub-Saharan Africa,
however, the adoption is yet to pick up steam due to various other challenges in the region. The viability of
converting the paratransit fleet (which consists mostly of minibus taxis) to electric vehicles (EVs) with current
combustion-based operations is investigated by making use of simulation software, and EV-Fleet-Sim. This
developed software simulates the driving and charging of operationally tracked taxis in the Stellenbosch
area. A charging algorithm, as well as a simple battery model, was included in the simulation to provide a
more accurate representation of the scenario. Most of the taxis were found to still complete their required
trips with the specified battery size of 70 kWh. However, new methods would need to be found, such as
including a mixed fleet with some petrol or diesel taxis, to assure a 100% trip completion rate. The grid
impact per vehicle was found with an expected maximum load appearing between the hours of 08h00 and
10h00 of 22 kW per vehicle, which corresponds to the time after the morning peak traffic of getting people
to work. Furthermore, a minimum number of chargers can be implemented which will not affect the trip
completion rate of the taxis. This was found to be for 4 chargers per 17 taxis. Future work is left to the
testing of various parameters to find optimal solutions as well as including home charging and failed trip
classification.
Description
The original publication is available at: http://www.advancesincleanerproduction.net/12th/site/index.html
Advances in Cleaner Production, Proceedings of the 12h International Workshop, Stellenbosch, South Africa. November 23nd and 24nd, 2023
Advances in Cleaner Production, Proceedings of the 12h International Workshop, Stellenbosch, South Africa. November 23nd and 24nd, 2023
Keywords
Citation
Pretorius, B. G., Strauss, J. M. & Booysen, M. J. 2023. Simulating The Driving and Charging of Electric Minibus Taxis: A Case Study for Stellenbosch