Page | 1 Towards Modelling Energy Demand of Vehicles in Cities: An Agent-Based Method Sedar Olmez *1,2 , Annabel Whipp 1 , Ellie Marfleet 1 , Jason Thompson 2 , Keiran Suchak 1 , Alison Heppenstall 3,4 , Rajith Vidanaarachchi 2 1 University of Leeds, School of Geography 2 University of Melbourne, School of Design 3 University of Glasgow, School of Social & Political Sciences 4 The Alan Turing Institute November 16, 2021 Summary In 2020, over 3 million electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) were sold, a 40% increase from 2019. There are now over 10 million electric cars on the roads globally, and this number is expected to rise to 300 million by 2030. Due to the significant environmental and health implications of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), national governments are adopting cleaner vehicle technologies at an unprecedented pace. Much of the literature regarding electric vehicles is centred around charging vehicle infrastructure and levels of market penetration. Consequently, there is an opportunity to explore energy consumption characteristics and produce estimates of energy demands in urban areas. This study employs an agent-based model of vehicle activity to quantify electric energy consumption through the simulation of a heterogeneous fleet of electric vehicles within an urban street network under several experimental conditions. KEYWORDS: Agent-Based Model, Traffic Simulator, Electric Vehicles, Cities, Public Policy Introduction Transport is one of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (“Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions | US EPA,” n.d.), and the use of road vehicles accounts for nearly 75% of transport-related emissions (“Tracking Transport 2021 – Analysis - IEA,” n.d.). Therefore, electric vehicles (EVs) are commonly presented as a viable alternative, as they can increase fuel efficiency and reduce the impacts of private transport on the environment. The sales of EVs globally increased to 3 million in 2020, a 40% increase from 2019 (“Electric Vehicles – Analysis - IEA,” n.d.). While all vehicle manufacturing companies have started building and testing EVs for the commercial market, there is a limited understanding of the level of energy consumption EVs will require (Sierzchula, Bakker, Maat, & Van Wee, 2012). Understanding the energy consumption of electric vehicles, and, therefore, energy demand is of fundamental importance for policymaking, the development of suitable infrastructure, and climate change, as heightened electricity demand could counteract the benefits of EVs compared to their counterpart ICEVs if this is too high. The aim of this study is to quantify the relationship between vehicle density and speed limit adherence, and its subsequent impact on electricity consumption (the amount of electricity required by * solmez@turing.ac.uk