Open Access Article Originally Published: May 25, 2002
The beaches of the Atlantic coastline in southwestern Delaware represent a significant tourist attraction for the State. However, where you find tourists you will usually find traffic a lot of it, especially during the summer, and where there are traffic problems, there are usually air quality problems.
To preserve the tourist-friendly nature of the beach corridor, the State of Delaware is sponsoring a program to introduce low-speed electric vehicles into fleets at strategic locations along the beach, with an eye toward expansion of the electric vehicle concept throughout the beach corridor.
What is the Issue Here?
"The State of Delaware offers one of the finest expanses of sand beaches on the East Coast," said Suzanne Sebastian, Energy Program Planner for the Delaware State Energy Office. "For this reason, our beaches serve as a vacation hotspot for the Mid-Atlantic region."
The Delaware beaches receive more than six million visitors each year. The Delaware beach corridor is an area adjacent to State Route 1 and bounded by Primehook Beach Island State Park in the north and Fenwick Island in the south along State Route 1. The corridor¹s high visitation rate results in "stop-and-go" traffic congestion during the summer vacation season (May through November). This in turn produces unhealthy regional air quality levels and dramatically increases summertime fuel consumption within the State. Although not monitored by the State, it is likely that localized concentrations of CO and toxic VOCs along this corridor in the summer months exceed national standard levels.
What Can Be Done?
"We feel that wide-scale use of electric vehicles offer one possible solution to the congestion and pollution problem for the Delaware beach corridor," according to Michael Panich, Chairman of Antares Group, Inc., a Maryland-based engineering consulting firm. "Beachgoers could use electric bikes, neighborhood electric vehicles, and on-highway electric vehicles for their local and inter-beach community travel needs, resulting in reduced vehicle emission levels and improved energy efficiency."
The use of EVs would displace conventional vehicles from Delaware beach corridor roadways and highways, thereby reducing total highway vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) for this transient, petroleum-fueled vehicle population.
From an operational standpoint, the summertime beach environment is very conducive to electric vehicle operation since EV batteries operate better at warmer temperatures and the generally flat beach terrain results in lower overall power needs. In addition, photovoltaic recharging can serve as an electricity source to recharge EVs given the preponderance of sunlight available at the beach.
Beach communities are also favorable to the more limited operating ranges of EVs given their small size and the short trips typically taken by vacationers and year-round residents. Further, electric bikes and NEVs are especially effective for boardwalk or dedicated roadway use and compliment the often-limited parking availability at beach locations. In fact, several of the southern beach communities already incorporate dedicated wide roadways for bike traffic along State Route 1.
From a viewpoint of technology commercialization, the beach communities offer several advantages for EV technology and use. First, EVs and their zero emission operation support the public¹s perception of a pristine beach environment. Second, in terms of promoting new technologies like EVs, the beach community and its substantial and varied seasonal population is an excellent market testbed. Vacationers are generally open-minded to trying new things, and the use of EVs during their vacation stay directly associates this new technology with an enjoyable experience, possibly leading to future use.
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