A New Flow-Based Location and Capacity Model for Profit-Oriented Refueling Station Network Transformation

The availability of refueling stations for alternative fuels is of high importance for the penetration of alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) in today’s markets and is an important lever for sustainable mobility. Therefore, refueling station network deployment strategies are currently of great interest to researchers. Several quantitative location models have been specifically developed, adapted, and applied to determine optimal refueling station locations and network build-up strategies for AFV refueling from an overall system’s perspective. However, the network operator’s intrinsic economic objectives and its preference for transforming the existing refueling station network rather than building up new refueling stations are subordinate in most research. That is why a new formulation of a flow-based location model is introduced in this study that not only decides on the locations of new alternative refueling stations but also on the provisioned capacities of multiple fuel types at each newly opened and each already existing refueling station in a multi-period planning horizon. This new approach uses a profit-oriented, cash flow-based objective function to transform the existing refueling station network over time. A case study depicting German highways is presented to validate the new model and the computational results are discussed.