Optimization and Collaboration Toward a Scalable Charging Infrastructure in Logistics

Faculty Leads: Saurabh Amin, professor of civil and environmental engineering and principal investigator at the MIT Laboratory of Information and Decision Systems (LIDS); Alexandre Jacquillat, associate professor of operations research and statistics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

The logistics sector contributes to 20–25% of greenhouse gas emissions, a third of which stems from road freight. Two decarbonization opportunities arise from the deployment of a charging infrastructure for electric vehicles along medium- and long-haul routes, and from the emergence of digital platforms to consolidate shipments across logistics providers. This project exploits the complementarities between these two opportunities to develop theoretical and data-driven insights toward the deployment of a scalable charging infrastructure on highways. The first phase will develop an optimization approach to identify effective centralized structures of charging networks and to quantify the benefits of pooling investments across multiple stakeholders (e.g., fleet owners, logistics service providers, government agencies, and private investors). The second phase will design collaborative mechanisms to enhance the adoption of electrified vehicles and the deployment of a charging infrastructure, while capturing the constraints of logistics operations and of electric vehicle technologies. Methodologically, this project will contribute new algorithms in large-scale integer optimization (building upon vehicle routing and facility location methodologies) and mechanism design (building upon network formation games and pricing mechanisms). Practically, it will contribute new decision tools and policy recommendations to support the ongoing transition toward the electrification and decarbonization of long-haul logistics.