Vehicle motion patterns for energy research: Comparison of annual mileage using vehicleand person-based data

Abstract

Mobility patterns define the energy demand of passengers, respectively of the used vehicles. The daily and annual distribution of those patterns are of particular relevance to electric mobility; they define both the daily peak charging power demand and the overall need for additional electricity generation capacity. These are crucial inputs for life cycle assessments and energy research in general. A common approach to describe mobility patterns on a national level is to categorize a limited amount of personal mobility information (e.g. microcensus) and extrapolate it onto the whole population. The quality of the mobility behaviour distribution is highly dependent on the size and quality of the sample data. We present a comparison of two different approaches for describing the vehicle annual mileage. To that end, we analyse the distribution of mileage with data collected at different scales, i.e. daily resolved data from microcensus and yearly resolved data from maintenance logs. We conclude with a discussion on the potential complementarity of both approaches to gain further insights into individual mobility.