Characterizing mobility patterns of private electric vehicle users with trajectory data

Human mobility pattern analysis has received rising attention. However, little is known about the mobility patterns of private Electric Vehicle (EV) users. In response, this paper characterized mobility patterns of private EV users using a unique one-month dataset containing moving trajectories of 76,774 actual private EVs in January 2018 in Beijing. Specifically, we first explored the diversity, regularity, spatial extent, and uniqueness of EV users’ mobility patterns. The results suggested that most EV users had both regular travel and activity patterns (the mean travel and activity entropies were 2.17 and 1.83, respectively) with special preferences towards some specific activity locations relative to all the locations they visited (the mean number of activity locations visited was 13.57 in one month). Furthermore, they tended to perform activities within a small geographical area (the mean radius of gyration was 7.60 km) and have a short daily travel distance (the mean value was 37.35 km) relative to their electric driving range. Further, we associated EV users’ mobility patterns with the built environment through ordinary least squares and geographically weighted regression models, particularly considering the so-called modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP). Due to the MAUP, most of the statistically significant built environment variables varied across spatial analysis units (SAUs). Gymnasia was the only variable statistically associated with the mobility patterns for all SAUs; while the variables related to residence and workplace were not statistically associated.