Will it get there? A deep learning model for predicting next-trip state of charge in Urban Green Freight Delivery with electric vehicles

To enhance urban freight efficiency and green development, China has implemented the Urban Green Freight Delivery (UGFD) project, which includes optimizing vehicle traffic control policies and increasing the number of new energy vehicles (NEV). However, range anxiety is a significant challenge for freight drivers performing delivery tasks with electric vehicles (a major component of NEV). We constructed a prediction model for the state of charge (SOC), or battery remaining energy percentage when UGFD vehicles reach the next trip point, aiming to alleviate this issue. The model consists of three modules: (1) a vehicle SOC context prediction module, (2) a vehicle energy consumption prediction module, and (3) a multi-perspective SOC prediction value fusion module. Specifically, in the SOC context prediction module, historical SOC sequences, vehicle status (loading/unloading, charging), and time intervals between SOC points are used to accurately describe context change trends, and directly predict the vehicle SOC at the next trip point. The energy consumption prediction module combines community-level and grid-level geographical location information for the vehicle stops using weather, vehicle parameters, etc., to model the spatial dynamic correlation of energy consumption. The vehicle SOC at the next trip point is the difference between the current vehicle SOC and the predicted energy consumption. The multi-perspective SOC prediction value fusion module is a combination of the predicted values from the context and energy consumption perspectives, resulting in the final vehicle SOC prediction value. Taking Suzhou, China as an example, the results show that the mean absolute error, root mean square error, and symmetric mean absolute percentage error for the constructed model are 23.67%, 10.39%, and 20.03% less, respectively, than for the baseline models focusing on SOC short-term time series prediction. The research results can provide scientific evidence for formulating refined energy management, charging station layout, and freight delivery optimization approaches.