Optimizing the Battery-Swapping Problem in Urban E-Bike Systems with Reinforcement Learning

Optimizing the Battery-Swapping Problem in Urban E-Bike Systems with Reinforcement Learning

Wenjing Li, Zhao Li, Xuanwu Liu, Ruihao Zhu, Zhenzhe Zheng, Fan Wu

Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
AI4Tech: AI Enabling Technologies. Pages 9259-9267. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2025/1029

E-bikes (EBs) are a key transportation mode in urban area, especially for couriers of delivery platforms, but underdeveloped EB systems can hinder courier's productivity due to limited battery capacity. Battery-swapping stations address this issue by enabling riders to exchange depleted batteries for fully charged ones. However, managing supply and demand (SnD) imbalances at these stations has become increasingly complex. To address this, we introduce a new approach that formulates the Battery-Swapping Problem (BSP) as a discrete-time Markov Decision Process (MDP) to capture the dynamics of SnD imbalances. Building on it, we propose a Wasserstein-enhanced Proximal Policy Optimization (W-PPO) algorithm, which integrates Wasserstein distance with reinforcement learning to improve the robustness against uncertainty in forecasting SnD. W-PPO provides a BSP-specific, accurate loss function that reflects reward variations between two policies under real-world simulation. The algorithm’s effectiveness is assessed using key metrics: Shared Battery Utilization Ratio (SBUR) and Battery Supply Ratio (BSR). Simulations on real-world datasets show that W-PPO achieves a 30.59% improvement in SBUR and a 16.09% increase in BSR ensures practical applicability. By optimizing battery utilization and improving EB delivery systems, this work highlights the potential of AI for creating efficient and sustainable urban transportation solutions.
Keywords:
Domain-specific AI4Tech: AI4Transport
Domain-specific AI4Tech: AI4Economy
Domain-specific AI4Tech: AI4Customer and AI4Market
Advanced AI4Tech: Data-driven AI4Tech