A spatiotemporal GIS-approach for evaluating the safety of EV trips during wildfires

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are evolving as a green transportation means to address climate change impacts. However, disruptive events could impede EVs' mobility even with sufficient driving range. This study thus fills a gap in transportation research by including the spatiotemporal impact of potential wildfires, represented by the daily maps of the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI), while calculating EVs' safest routes. A case study is conducted in Halifax, Nova Scotia, using three FWI scenarios representing high, medium, and low risk scenarios. EV trips are evaluated by 1) comparing the safest and shortest routes' FWI value and trip distance, 2) investigating the adequacy of existing EV charging infrastructure (EVCI) on those safest routes under different State of Charge (SOC) levels for EVs, and 3) comparing the safest routes in the different risk scenarios. The findings of this research have significant implications in supporting the resilience of transportation electrification by being one step towards proactive emergency planning during disruptive events.