Smart ride and delivery services with electric vehicles: Leveraging bidirectional charging for profit optimisation

Abstract

With the rising popularity of electric vehicles (EVs), modern service systems, such as ride-hailing delivery services, are increasingly integrating EVs into their operations. Unlike conventional vehicles, EVs often have a shorter driving range, necessitating careful consideration of charging when fulfilling requests. With recent advances in Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology—allowing EVs to also discharge energy back to the grid—new opportunities and complexities emerge. We introduce the Electric Vehicle Orienteering Problem with V2G (EVOP-V2G): a profit-maximisation problem where EV drivers must select a subset of customer requests while managing when and where to charge or discharge. This in..