ABSTRACT: Mobil­i­ty on-demand vehi­cle (MODV) ser­vices have grown explo­sive­ly in recent years, threat­en­ing tar­gets for local air
pol­lu­tion and glob­al car­bon emis­sions. Despite evi­dence that on-demand auto­mo­tive fleets are ripe for elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, adop­tion of
bat­tery elec­tric vehi­cles (BEVs) in fleet appli­ca­tions has been hin­dered by lack of charg­ing infra­struc­ture and long charg­ing times.
Recent research on elec­tri­fi­ca­tion pro­grams in Chi­nese megac­i­ties sug­gests that top-down pol­i­cy tar­gets can spur invest­ment in
charg­ing infra­struc­ture, while intel­li­gent charg­ing coor­di­na­tion can great­ly reduce require­ments for bat­tery range and infra­struc­ture, as well as rev­enue loss­es due to time spent charg­ing. Such capa­bil­i­ty may require labor pol­i­cy reform to allow fleet oper­a­tors to man­age their dri­vers’ charg­ing behav­ior, along with col­lec­tion and inte­gra­tion of sev­er­al key data sets includ­ing (1) vehi­cle tra­jec­to­ries and ener­gy con­sump­tion, (2) charg­ing infra­struc­ture instal­la­tion costs, and (3) real-time charg­ing sta­tion avail­abil­i­ty. In turn, dig­i­ti­za­tion enabled by fleet elec­tri­fi­ca­tion holds the poten­tial to enable a host of smart urban mobil­i­ty strate­gies, includ­ing inte­gra­tion of pub­lic tran­sit with inno­v­a­tive trans­porta­tion sys­tems and emis­sion-based pric­ing policies.