Infrastructure development for alternative fuel vehicles on a highway road system

•We suggest a mathematical model to locate refueling stations on a directed network.•Single and dual access refueling stations are considered simultaneously.•We build round trip covering conditions that are path length dependent.•The model is applied to the PA Turnpike system to locate LNG refueling stations.•Two greedy heuristics are developed to provide a sequence in placing the stations.

A new mathematical model for positioning alternative fuel (AF) refueling stations on directed-transportation networks with the objective of maximizing the coverage of path flow volume is proposed. This model is especially designed for developing an AF infrastructure on toll roads and other highways, where vehicles do not need to exit the road network for refueling, some candidate station locations are not located at interchanges, and some stations may only service vehicles on one driving direction. The proposed model is applied to the Pennsylvania Turnpike System using the 2011 truck traffic data and considering different vehicle driving ranges.