A Holistic Approach to Evaluate the Competitiveness of Electric Vehicle

Abstract

Global warming due to climate change has turned out to be the top concern at present. Millions of people are affected owing to global warming as it effects the food production, forests and life of wild animals, sea level rise etc. Emission of GHGs has already reached at the alarming level. Transportation sector emits the biggest portion of carbon in the atmosphere which is why reduction of carbon emission in this sector has become a major obligation for the researchers and scientists. To cope with the world Bangladesh is also trying to improve the transportation sector. Application of electric vehicle in the public transportation sector has become popular in recent years in many countries including Bangladesh. Electric Rickshaw is being used in many areas of Bangladesh as a new mode of public transportation. This study refers an initiative to prove the competitiveness of electric vehicle comparing with other existing mode of transportation in Dhaka city. PESTLE, AHP and TOPSIS are the three popular methods that have been used in this study to evaluate the competitiveness of Electric Rickshaw in the roads of Dhaka city. PESTLE has been selected as it takes environmental factors into account along with other political, economic, social, technological and legal factors as well as produces a framework for further analysis. Further analysis is done by using TOPSIS where AHP is required. AHP refers to Analytic Hierarchy Process which is being used worldwide as a decision making tool. The AHP is a decision support tool which can be used to solve complex decision problems. It uses a multi-level hierarchical structure of objectives, criteria, sub criteria, and alternatives. In this study, Electric Rickshaw, Leguna and Rickshaw have been taken as three alternatives to be compared and the criterions are set from PESTLE framework. AHP analysis produces the normalized weighted value which is used in the steps of TOPSIS analysis. The overall proposed methodology is to identify the criteria to be used by PESTLE, determination of normalized weighted value by using AHP, evaluation of alternatives with TOPSIS and determination of the final rank. In this study, Electric Rickshaw, Leguna and Rickshaw have been taken as three alternatives to be compared. After all calculation, Leguna has been preferred to convey passengers instead of Electric Rickshaw. Finally the research shows that the acceptance vi of electric vehicle is still not up to the mark. But the current situation can be motivated by acquiring some proper measures. If the reasons behind the hindrance of moving electric vehicle on the roads can be optimized, it will be very much possible to possess an eco-friendly transportation system.