Aligned Simulation Models for Simulating Africa’s Electric Minibus Taxis

Abstract

Planning for the eventual electrification of transport in sub-Saharan Africa requires accurate simulation of its unique transport systems. The few studies that attempt to model electric minibus taxis—vehicles extensively used in sub-Saharan Africa’s public transport systems—vary greatly in their results. This paper analyses, compares and corrects the only two existing studies that project energy consumption of electric minibus taxis in the region. One of the studies projected an energy consumption of 0.39 kWh/km, while the other projected 0.93 kWh/km. This paper carefully analyses the simulation tools and models and cumulatively applies corrections from the literature and scientific analyses. As a result, the discrepancy between the two simulation tools is eliminated for a given data input and a final energy consumption is estimated in the range of 0.49–0.52 kWh/km, depending on the input data.

Keywords

• electric vehicle
• simulation
• electro-kinetic model
• minibus taxi
• efficiency
• energy expenditure