Decarbonizing the transport sector is crucial for achieving global carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Electric taxis (e-taxis), which play a vital role in urban public transportation, are central to this transition. However, their operational performance deteriorates significantly under extremely cold conditions. Existing planning models for charging infrastructure often overlook the impact of low temperatures, creating a critical research gap. To address this issue, we propose a novel planning framework using Urumqi, China (43.8° N, 87.6° E) as a case study. Urumqi is a major cold-region metropolis, where January temperatures regularly drop below −20 °C. Our methodology includes two key steps: integrating 412 driver questionnaires and 1.2 million high-resolution GPS trajectories to extract temperature-sensitive charging demand profiles; and incorporating these profiles into an integer linear programming (ILP) model to minimize lifecycle costs, considering climatic constraints, taxi operation patterns, and grid limitations. A key innovation is a temperature-correction coefficient, which dynamically adjusts vehicle energy consumption and driving range based on ambient temperature. Results show superiority over conventional (temperature-ignoring) and random plans: 14-fold lower annualized cost, 23-fold shorter average queuing time, 96.2% high-frequency demand coverage (+16.6%), and 78% charging station utilization (+50.0%). It achieves 29.8–32.3% cost savings at −5 °C (over 25.9% even at −35 °C) and scales stably for 5–50% e-taxi penetration, offering a transferable framework for cold-region e-taxi charging optimization.
Xu et al. (2026) studied this question.