Electric Vehicle Routing

DESCRIPTION

Electric vehicles (EVs) are one of the most promising technologies to reduce petroleum dependency and greenhouse gas emissions. The latter, is especially true when we consider the potential benefits of using EVs for freight transportation, which is believed to be responsible for as much as 30% of emissions in the European Union. However, the massive adoption of EVs for freight transportation is still hampered by technical constraints such as low driving ranges and long battery charging times. In recent years, considerable research has been, and still is, devoted to overcome these constraints via technological advances in battery capacity, electrical efficiency, and battery charging speed. However, a considerable effort is still needed to develop fleet management tools able to cope with these restricting EV features. One of the fields in which the void is more critical is that of optimization techniques for solving electric vehicle routing problems (e-VRPs). The main objective of this doctoral project is to contribute filling this void by designing, implementing, testing, and disseminating optimization methods for solving e-VRPs.

CONTEXT

The dissertation is part of electric vehicle routing optimization (e-VRO), a research project funded by ANR (the French equivalent of NSF). More information about the project can be found at http://e-vro.info. The student will be based at Polytech Tours (http://polytech.univ-tours.fr) and be part of team OC (ERL CNRS 6305) at the Computer Science Research Lab (http://li.univ-tours.fr). The dissertation will be formally supervised by Pr. Emmanuel Néron and Dr. Jorge E. Mendoza but the student will likely collaborate also with other researchers participating in e-VRO. The scholarship is around 1,5k€/month. The start date can be set at any time between Sep. 2016 and Jan. 2017 at the best convenience of the student.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS

The ideal applicant possesses strong computer programming skills (preferably in Java) and software architecture; has advance knowledge of operations research models and methods; and is able to communicate comfortably in English. Such applicants must hold a Masters degree in operations research, management science, industrial engineering, or applied mathematics. Knowledge of French is only necessary for making life more pleasant in France but not professionally required.

CONTACT

Interested applicants should contact Dr. Jorge E. Mendoza (jorge.mendoza@univ-tours.fr) attaching to the email: an up-to-date CV, a letter of motivation, transcripts for the last two academic years, and the name and contact information of 2 professional references. Please use the tag “[e-VRO] application” as subject on the email. The deadline for applications is May 31, 2016.