Generalized User Equilibrium for Coordinated Operation of Power-Traffic Networks

The increasing electric vehicles (EVs) imposes great challenges on the coordination between the power distribution network (PDN) and transportation network (TN). This paper proposes the generalized user equilibrium (GUE) method to manage their interactions. First, the concept of GUE is proposed to describe the steady-state distribution of the traffic flow as extension of user equilibrium (UE) which could no longer exist due to the influence of PDN operation on TN. Second, the GUE model is established via which the operation of PDN and TN is coordinated with traffic assigned and power generation scheduled simultaneously. Finally, an efficient solution algorithm is proposed by decomposing the primal problem into a master problem and a series of feasible and optimal path generation sub-problems for individual origin-destination (O-D) pairs. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been verified via case studies based on a real-world city TN. The results demonstrate the necessity of GUE and its potential in improving the operation of coupled power-traffic networks.