Location of an electric vehicle charging station: demographic factor as decision making

• Author(s): Gonçalves, Catarina ; Silva, Ângela ; Rodrigues, Helena Sofia
• Date: 2024
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/43501
• Origin: RIA - Repositório Institucional da Universidade de Aveiro
• Document Type: Book part
• Language: English

Description

Infrastructure is referred as being one of the major drivers for the sound economic development of the country, however, the location of the same can become a crucial factor for the population that lives mainly in rural areas. This case study aims to identify the best point for the installation of a new electric charging station in the municipality of Viana do Castelo, Portugal. The method applied is the centre of gravity, using as data the coordinates of the parish councils, the total population, and the administrative division of 2011 and 2021. The goal is to find a central location, considering the population density and minimizing the distance between the location of the charging station and the parish councils. In this work, three scenarios were tested. The coordinates of all the parish councils belonging to the municipality were taken and analyzed, assuming the weight related to existing population in each parish. The results obtained, applying the gravity centre method directly, in the first two approaches, it was achieved were not a realistic point, since it represented a space in Lima River. In the last scenario, to promote the parishes that do not have any type of loading, it was found a central location near several parishes without charging point.