Deployment of an electric charging point network infrastructure in Paris : an economic analysis via CoBAYe

Mots-clés:

Résumé:

In November 2013, the Council of Paris voted the implementation of a charging point network infrastructure in the French capital, intended to both private and professional road users. This policy is part of a wish to promote the emergence of the electric automobility and hence curb air pollution in Paris. It mainly focuses on the implementation of charging points on delivery areas, but also plans to make its well-known car sharing system “Autolib`” denser.
In this paper, we propose a methodology to assess this public policy, taking into account both the techno-economic constraints and potentialities of the electric car, and the interdependencies of a wide variety of public policies and private strategies associated with the emergence and the diffusion of the contemporary electric automobile.
Our research lies in public economics, and considers a supplemented version of the traditional cost-benefit analysis (CBA), called CoBAYe. Indeed, this new decision-making tool proposes to use a systematic typology based on the consideration of direct, indirect and induced effects of the implementation of a public policy. Then, CoBAYe takes into account spatial, temporal, technical and functional interdependencies between public policies and private strategies, and in that way operates a real paradigm shift in decision theory through two innovations.
-First, the time horizon beyond which it is no longer scientifically justified, nor feasible, to continue the ex-ante evaluation of a public policy, is now determined endogenously in the political decision.
-Second, the use of “opportunity benefits” in the analysis will enable identifying and evaluating interdependencies of policies and private strategies that are part of the spatio-temporal framework of the decision.
Therefore, relying on the CoBAYe methodology, the main result presented in this paper is an ex-ante evaluation of the deployment of a charging point network infrastructure in Paris and its anticipating results on both the local economy and the emergence and diffusion of the contemporary electric automobile.