Time Optimal and Eco-Driving Mission Planning under Traffic Constraints

This paper addresses optimising a transport mission by controlling the mission start time and velocity profile of an electric vehicle (EV) driving in a hilly terrain, subject to legal and dynamic speed limits imposed by traffic congestion. To this end, a nonlinear program (NLP) is formulated, where the mission start time is allowed to vary within an interval and final time is kept free. The goal is to find the optimal trade-off between energy consumption and travel time, while allowing a flexibility in starting time and a certain variation of vehicle speed around an average. It is observed that total travel time is reduced up to 5.5% by adjusting the mission start time, when keeping an average cruising speed of about 75 km/h