CIMA+ and Altitude by Geotab Optimize EV Infrastructure Planning with Commercial Transportation Insights

For over 30 years, they have specialized in a multidisciplinary approach, encompassing a full range of engineering services. As a leading firm in transportation electrification initiatives, they assist their clients with assessing charging needs, developing fleet electrification strategy and designing the required charging infrastructure to charge the vehicles, which involves working closely with utilities.

CIMA+ wanted to assess the potential future needs of a Canadian province for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs), and as such, they worked with Altitude by Geotab to analyze commercial freight data that would allow the province to make smarter, more informed infrastructure decisions. The team wanted to accurately determine the energy requirements for new commercial electric vehicle (EV) charging sites. The project’s end goal was to support the decarbonization of both medium- and heavy-duty freight transportation.

There are risks and challenges when building new electric vehicle charging infrastructure without considering factors such as grid requirements, climate and regular traffic totals. This awareness led the team to adopt a data-driven approach to strategically address EV charging gaps along the region’s roadways. Given recent sustainability mandates and the growing importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, companies are increasingly looking to minimize their carbon footprint and move goods in cleaner ways. There is a need to invest in additional EV charging stations to facilitate a smoother transition to zero-emissions vehicles for businesses, but a lack of data about future fleet electrical demand and supporting grid capacity presented a significant challenge. Considering the high cost of installing these stations, careful and strategic analysis of the data was essential in the planning process to promote a successful outcome.

Unique challenges associated with EVs in Canada also needed to be considered. The colder Canadian climate impacts their mileage efficiency, and commercial vehicles in Canada tend to be heavier, which places extra strain on batteries. Electrifying heavy fleets is usually more complicated due to their demanding usage, which may involve longer trips, unpredictable routing and variable schedules. To achieve a successful infrastructure planning outcome, these are important factors to consider. Using Altitude by Geotab’s contextualized freight data in an accurate grid analysis, CIMA+ analyzed the requirements needed for widespread, yet strategic EV charging station implementation for MHDVs.

CIMA+’s analysis followed the established methodology from the International Council on Clean Transportation’s (ICCT) “Near-Term Infrastructure Deployment to Support ZEV Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles in the United States” to calculate total daily energy needs for new EV chargers. Using Altitude by Geotab aggregated data within this methodology, CIMA+ discovered that roughly 65% of all medium- to heavy-duty intraprovincial trips spanned less than 160 kilometers daily. In the Altitude platform, they looked at the distribution of distance traveled and dwell time comparisons by vehicle classes and converted this into energy consumption profiles, emissions breakdowns and probable average travel distances to develop their analysis.

The data highlighted a strong opportunity for these vehicles to charge during higher dwell times across each type of vehicle in classes 3-8. Across classes 3-5, CIMA+ surveyed the analysis results and additionally found that approximately 33% of these vehicles would require supplementary charging stations to complete their daily travel responsibilities if they were to go electric. These charging depots could either be made up of public charging or on-route charging stations.

Project energy consumption profile per vehicle class

Key outcomes:

• The average energy consumption would be 1.05 kWh/km
• Total energy would only account for 3-5% of energy produced in this province compared to 2019’s energy production

A breakdown of energy consumption metrics specific to the different vehicle classes studied.

On-route vs. depot charging

Key outcomes:

• Close to 1/3 of all trips require opportunity charging during the day
• Overnight charging could fill the majority of charging needs for Class 3 to Class 5 trucks, but on-route charging will be required to meet this minimal energy need

A daily energy needs analysis for vehicles across classes 3-5.

By providing key transportation information like origin and destination data and commercial vehicle context, Altitude by Geotab helped CIMA+ uncover valuable insights into how trucks are moving goods, enabling them to verify where new zero-emissions technologies can meet fleets’ operational needs. These insights enabled them to recommend appropriate plans, infrastructure, and policies to achieve province-wide fleet electrification goals.

As new transportation data becomes available, CIMA+ can run new calculations and gain additional insights to refine or adapt their sustainability goals. This approach empowers them to test and learn based on their initial findings. Predicting future energy demands using aggregated telematics data from Altitude by Geotab will be critical as more transportation and logistics companies go electric. Although light-duty vehicles are most commonly thought of as the easiest types of vehicles to electrify, there’s a growing opportunity for medium- and heavy-duty vehicle fleets to transition to EVs. The prioritization of data-driven charging infrastructure plans helps provinces account for the unique needs of every commercial vehicle type and maximize their investments, all while not jeopardizing the limits of their power grid. CIMA+’s study sets an example in advancing a greener future for the entire country. It’s more important than ever for public sector and utility entities to grasp the intricate ways commercial fleets operate if they want to adequately support organizations with vehicle electrification. Doing so helps them plan appropriate charging infrastructure and power requirements to accommodate the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle duty cycles their regions regularly see.

In the past, a knowledge gap in using Origin & Destination data for commercial fleet electrification initiatives meant infrastructure planning was reliant on a minimal understanding of how vehicles are actually traveling through a region. Altitude by Geotab closed this gap and is propelling the industry forward by working with consultancies, engineering firms and governments to help them accurately understand how trucks are moving throughout their regions. It is with transportation data like ours that organizations like CIMA+ are able to calculate grid assessments and devise better infrastructure electrification plans for their valued clients.