• Energy Research

With the continuous development of intelligent transportation technologies, new ways of energy usage in transportation continue to emerge, which puts forward new requirements for the planning and design of energy systems. However, comprehensive analyses on the characteristics of transportation energy systems and the development trend of energy usage patterns brought by intelligent technologies have rarely been carried out so far. This paper explores this subject by reviewing the recent development and utilization of intelligent technologies in the transportation system and its impacts on energy usage. This review is carried out from three aspects, covering the representative intelligent transportation and energy technologies on vehicles, infrastructures and systems. The scope is limited within road, railway and water transport domains, with a focus on the recent developments in China as a representative. In terms of vehicles, the development trend of the power systems for new energy vehicles, the characteristics of energy usages in electric vehicles and the effects on energy saving and emission reduction are summarized. In terms of infrastructures, new technologies on smart road, smart port, intelligent railway energy system and the usage of clear energy on electric grid for transportation are reviewed, with the consideration of their potential influences on energy usages and the energy consumption characteristics of typical facilities also being analyzed. As for the transportation system, this review has focused on intelligent and connected transportation systems, train control and autonomous systems, and intelligent shipping system, with the emphasis on the energy saving and emission reduction effects of applying these intelligent technologies. The overall development trend of the transportation energy system is then analyzed based on the above materials, in particular, the future energy usage patterns in transportation system are given and the major challenges and obstacles approaching the future scenarios are also identified.

Energy consumption in transportation and households are the main two sections of energy consumption in Europe. To cope with the challenges raised by energy security, sustainability, and pollution, great efforts have been made to encourage the transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles and car sharing. In terms of households, home renewable energy equipment such as heat pumps and solar panels are promising solutions. To accelerate the diffusion of these promising and environmentally friendly technologies, an abundance of studies has investigated the factors that impact the adoption of them. Most of the existing literature considered the choice behavior of vehicle types and choice behavior of energy equipment to be exogenous to other. Charging electric vehicles at home will lead to an increase in home energy costs. It is important to understand to what extent a household’s decision to purchase new mobility tools or energy equipment is affected by the other. This paper, therefore, attempts to investigate the correlation between the choice of home energy equipment and the choice of new mobility tools. An inverted sequence stated preference experiment was designed and conducted in the Netherlands to examine the interdependence of mobility tools choice and home energy equipment choice. Two logit models were presented to investigate how the choice of mobility tools and energy equipment impact each other. Results indicate that the promoting effect between electric vehicles and solar panels is bidirectional, while the promoting effect between electric vehicles and heat pumps is unidirectional.