Dynamic Coordinated Joint Routing and En-Route Charging Mechanism for Traffic Congestion Mitigation: Game-Theoretic Modeling and Distributed Optimization

As electric vehicles (EVs) grow in popularity, new challenges emerge regarding congestion at charging stations and on roads. Real-time traffic and charging information enable informed routing/charging decisions, but independent selfish reactions can exacerbate congestion due to the flash crowd effect. This study develops a dynamic coordinated joint routing and en-route charging mechanism (DcRC) to provide guidance for EVs and ICE vehicles, reducing road and charging station congestions. Considering traffic flow and charging queueing dynamics, DcRC is formulated as a mixed strategy congestion game with an equivalent mathematical model generating equilibrium routing and charging decisions to mitigate flash crowd effects without violating vehicle self-interests. A distributed ADMM-aided Branch-and-Bound (DAB) algorithm efficiently solves DcRC with hundreds of participants. Numerical experiments validate DcRC's effectiveness in reducing congestion/system costs and DAB's efficiency in supporting real-time navigation services.