Car-Access Attractiveness of Urban Districts Regarding Shopping and Working Trips for Usage in E-Mobility Traffic Simulations

Abstract

With the continuous proliferation of private battery electric vehicles, the demand for electrical energy and power is constantly increasing. As a result, the electrical grid may need to be expanded. To plan for such expansion, information about the spatial distribution of the energy demand is necessary. This can be determined from e-mobility traffic simulations, where travel schedules of individuals are combined with an attractiveness rating of locations to estimate traffic flows. Typically, attractiveness is determined from the “size” of locations (e.g., number of employees or sales area), which is applicable when all modes of transportation are considered. This approach leads to inaccuracies for the estimation of car traffic flows, since the parking situation is neglected. To overcome these inaccuracies and fill this research gap, we have developed a method to determine the car-access attractiveness of districts for shopping and working trips. Our method consists of two steps. First, we determine the car-access attractiveness of buildings within a district based on the parking situation of each individual building and then aggregate the results at the district level. The approach is demonstrated for the city of Berlin. The results confirm that conventional models cannot be used to determine the car-access attractiveness of districts. According to these models, attractive districts are predominantly located in the city centre due to the large amount of sales areas or the large number of employees. However, due to the high density of buildings, only limited space is available for parking. Attractive districts rated according to our new approach are mainly located in the outer areas of the city and thus match the parking situation.