DR. MICHAEL KUBY
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCES AND URBAN PLANNING
DIRECTOR, GRADUATE CERTIFICATE IN TRANSDISCIPLINARY TRANSPORTATION STUDIES
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20TH, 12:20 P.M. - 1:20 P.M. @ AUST 445
OPTIMAL AND COLLABORATIVE APPROACHES TO PLANNING HYDROGEN REFUELING INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE HARTFORD REGION
After decades of R&D, automakers finally began leasing and selling fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) to consumers in 2012. Eleven years later, California remains the only state where car dealerships offer FCEVS (around 17,000 sold to date) and drivers can refuel at open retail hydrogen refueling stations (54 HRSs). After California, Connecticut has one of the most active development programs to pave the way for retail sale of FCEVs. We therefore chose the Hartford region to test two different approaches—optimization and geodesign—for planning a network of HRSs.
The first approach, based on the Flow Refueling Location Model (FRLM), combined operations research and GIS to maximize the number of origin-destination trips that can be completed with minimal detours from their fastest routes. One of the known limitations of the FRLM, however, is that it favors freeway intersections, through which hundreds of thousands of trips pass daily, but where it may be difficult to find an accessible retail site. To address this concern, Kelley (2016) developed the Freeway Traffic Capture Method (FTCM), which assesses the degree to which drivers can conveniently reach sites on local streets surrounding these complex interchanges. Our spatial optimization approach applied in Hartford (Zhao et al. 2019) integrates the FTCM with the FRLM in a multi-scale planning model for early-stage HRS infrastructure planning.
The second approach employed geodesign, a participatory planning approach in which stakeholder breakout groups use GIS to develop and test alternative design scenarios in a collaborative and iterative workshop process (Lopez et al., 2021). Using the Collablocation open-source software developed at ASU, we facilitated a one-day geodesign workshop at the Connecticut Hydrogen Fuel Cell Coalition with 17 participants from industry, government, university, and non-profit sectors. The participants identified relevant location factors, visualized relevant spatial data layers, generated and tested network designs, incorporated their own personal knowledge of the region, and reached consensus on a final design. Participants were able to consider the results from three different optimization models, and we compare their recommendations to the optimal model results.
BIO: Dr. Michael Kuby’s research focuses on the intersection of transportation, energy, and sustainability. Topics range from alternative-fuel stations, vehicles, and drivers to rail ridership, bicycling, transit-oriented development, carbon capture and storage, and retail location using methods from optimization models to spatial and statistical analysis, survey research, and ethnography. His research has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, World Bank, NASA, and US Global Change Research Program. He was the 2016 recipient of the Edward Ullman Award for “significant contributions to transportation geography” from the American Association of Geographers.
For more information, contact: Katie Baldi at katie.baldi@uconn.edu