CAS- Climate. SRS: U.S.-China: Infrastructure-Driven Decision System for Sustainable and Equitable Urban-Rural Development

2214872 (Zhao). Electrification is the future for much of sustainable transportation, and expanded use of electric vehicles (EVs) is a significant part of future urban-rural systems. EVs have the potential to improve environmental sustainability substantially, since 29% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs).

It is estimated that 18.7 million EVs will be on U.S. roads by 2030, with a 37% annual growth. Charging infrastructure is critical to the continued growth of EV and its upstream industries. A lack of convenient and ubiquitous charging infrastructure is one of the key factors that impedes EV adoption.

Increasing investments to the U.S. infrastructure, for example, the recent $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, envision and plan a network of hundreds of thousands of new charging stations along roads and highways by 2030. Investments in charging infrastructure involve not only financial and economic decisions but also social and environmental decisions, as they influence regional sustainability and equity across urban and rural areas.

However, current decision-making models and tools for infrastructure investment focus on project-level economic and engineering efficiency and rarely consider region-level environment and equity. Therefore, the goal of this project is to create a GIS-based decision system to integrate regional economic/engineering efficiency, environmental sustainability, and social equity into EV charging infrastructure planning and design.

Built upon preliminary data on engineering-focused optimization models for charging infrastructure design and construction, this project will further (1) assess regional environmental impacts, (2) assess regional social equity, and (3) identify urban-rural spatial mismatches via case studies in real-world testbed regions in the U.S. and China. The project will produce case studies to demonstrate the use of a decision system and the impacts of EV charging infrastructure on regional development.

The project will produce new knowledge about the impacts of EV charging infrastructure on region-level economic, environmental, and societal development, and will create a decision system that can assess infrastructure investment plans to ensure economic and engineering efficiency, environmental sustainability, and social equity for regional urban-rural systems.

In prior work, the research team developed optimization models to guide the design of EV charging stations (e.g., producing locations and construction plan). The optimization models are to maximize economic cost/benefit based on engineering simulation and computation. Also, the team developed the GIS-based Michigan Spatial Mismatch (MSM) Tool to visualize spatial mismatches and issues of regional equity.

To extend the MSM economic/engineering-based decision model (Module #1), this project will add modules that assess regional environmental sustainability (Module #2) and social equity (Module #3). Modules #1-3 together will constitute the decision system. To create the decision system, the research team will perform Tasks 1-3 as follows.

Task 1: Assess regional environmental sustainability to be enabled by EV charging infrastructure. Task 2: Assess the regional social equity to be impacted by EV charging infrastructure. Task 3: Demonstrate the decision system to support EV charging infrastructure design.

The decision system will (1) enable big data analytics and interactive graphics to visualize regional consistency and mismatches, (2) add layers of environment and equity to complement current models and tools for charging station optimization, and (3) highlight regional interactions and urban-rural typology that is an important factor for EV charging infrastructure investment. Project outcomes will help guide planners, designers, and engineers on charging infrastructure investment towards sustainable and equitable economic development.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.