Modeling Resilient Electric Transport Systems for Emergency Response and Recovery

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ELEFTHEIA KONTOU,
Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Modeling Resilient Electric
Transport Systems for Emergency Response and Recovery

Frequent and intensified hazards create unprecedented challenges for transportation and energy systems’ resilience. As electric vehicle adoption grows, this vehicle technology can enable travel while provide backup power during extreme events. First, I will present an evacuation route planning model for heterogeneous alternative fuel vehicles. Conventional evacuation plans prove infeasible for vehicles with limited driving range and sparse recharging or refueling infrastructure. I will present a mathematical model for evacuation paths incorporating constraints that capture each fuel type’s recharging and refueling needs while maintaining seamlessness and contraflow traffic control. In the second part of my talk, I will focus on opportunities offered by electric vehicles for households sheltering in-place. I examine vehicle-to-home technology as a residential resilience strategy during power outages. Through simulations across nine US climate regions, I quantify both household energy needs met and post-outage mobility capabilities. Last, I will touch upon a bidirectional energy supply logistics model utilizing electric uncrewed aerial and ground vehicles for humanitarian energy supply. Formulated as a two-echelon location-routing problem with resource allocation and time windows, this approach determines optimal vehicle routes, charging station locations, and energy allocation from the vehicles to resilience.