Multi-Period Coordinated Optimization of Coupled Traffic-Power Systems via Pricing Incentives

The rapid growth of electric vehicles (EV s) and fast charging stations couples the urban power network and traffic network and brings spatial-temporal flexibility resources. Through the coordination of price incentives, the EV traffic flow and charging load distribution can be improved to relieve the congestion phenomenon in the coupled traffic-power systems. In this paper, a multi-period coordinated optimization framework of the coupled traffic-power systems based on pricing incentives is proposed and implemented in two steps. Firstly, in an aggregated manner, the multi-period optimal traffic-power flow is calculated to minimize the total network operation costs. The temporal and spatial flexibility of EV s is described by a multi-period traffic assignment model, which is formulated as cone optimization to accelerate the solution. Secondly, in a disaggregation manner, the best pricing strategies, i.e., road toll and charging prices are identified to track the flow target above while minimizing total taxes imposed on EV users. Case studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework and methods. The two-step pricing framework is proven to effectively improve traffic-power flow and reduce computational burden.