EV charging: what if I live in a flat with limited parking?

One of the great features of the DG Cities team is our mix of public and private sector experience, and the insight this gives us into the realities of implementing technological solutions in housing estates, particularly when it comes to transport. Our Head of Smart Mobility, Kim Smith has been leading transport strategy and delivery for more than 25 years. Here, she draws on this knowledge and the latest analysis to consider different perspectives on a key challenge for EVs: what if I don’t have anywhere to charge one?

We know that transport emissions represent a major hurdle in the move to a zero-carbon future. We know that part of the government’s strategy to address this is to set an end date for the production of diesel and petrol driven vehicles. The uptake of new electric vehicles is growing rapidly, so we can also assume the second-hand market in EVs will also blossom over the next five years or so. We are at the point where EVs are no longer just for early adopters and there is mainstream take-up, but this means that the practicalities for many consumers are coming into sharper focus. One of the key issues: where do I charge it?

If you have your own dedicated parking space where you can charge your new EV, whether at home or work, then certainly, unless you’re heading off on a trip or covering exceptionally long distances, how and where to charge is relatively straightforward. However, work we have done at DG Cities shows that a high proportion of us don’t have off-street parking. Important to note, our research tells us this isn’t just a city problem – it is equally evident in both urban and rural areas. Figures vary by location, but around a quarter to a third of households don’t have a space at home to charge off-road.

“...do we really need to cover our footways with charge points? Is that not simply an evolution of the car-dominated planning policies of the 60s and 70s?”

— Kim Smith, Head of Smart Mobility

Is the solution to fill our streets with EV infrastructure?

There are planning and accessibility issues when it comes to infrastructure on the street: do we really need to cover our footways with charge points for those of us who need to rely on public charging? Is that not simply an evolution of the car-dominated planning policies of the 60s and 70s?

It’s an interesting thought, as we transition away from fossil fuels and the experience of popping to a garage to top up our tank, how our lifestyles and the places we live will adapt to this change. As proponents of the technology, how can we help to ensure that not having a dedicated charger and the associated range anxiety isn’t seen as a deal breaker? One way is to look at the data…

We don’t always drive as far as we think

Battery technology is moving ahead, and vehicle range is increasing, certainly with the more expensive EV options. In theory at least, range anxiety should be decreasing. Additionally, most of us drive far fewer miles than we imagine. Work done recently by our friends at Field Dynamics, looking at data on 140 million records from annual MOT tests over the last four years, shows that, on average, mileage is dropping: pre-Covid average annual mileage has fallen year-on-year since 2019, to 5,506 miles per year for 2021. There are outliers – high and low mileage drivers – however, when broken down further, 57% of vehicles travel less than 100 miles per week, 87% of vehicles travelled less than 200 miles per week.

The anomaly tends to be in the growing market of vans, where higher mileage, combined with (currently) less range, means multiple charges per week are needed. We also need to consider those who are either buying less expensive vehicles with more limited range, or second-hand vehicles whose older battery technology may require more frequent topping up.

What if you live in a flat with no parking?

For residents of flats, especially older blocks, where parking may not have been a consideration for early planners or developers, traditional parking pressure is already a concern. Garage blocks are often used for storage rather than vehicles. The lack of – or in some instances, lack of knowledge about – an accessible, affordable and efficient public charging network is a huge consumer issue and barrier to EV uptake.

As part of our work aiding the transition for council residents, DG Cities is working with colleagues in the Royal Borough of Greenwich to look at charging needs in housing estates. These are often a mixture of high- and low-rise buildings with limited parking. The approach must be holistic, and this project forms part of a wider piece of work looking at Mobility Hubs on estates, and how councils can offer residents a mix of sustainable transport options (watch this space for more news!) However, to ensure tenants and leaseholders in council properties are prepared for the transition to EVs and not left behind, public charge point provision in or close to the estate is being looked at as a priority.

As with all things, the solutions we are seeing are complex, influenced by continually evolving shifts in behaviour and attitudes as much as technology. Consumer confidence comes with education and experience adapting to EVs. This confidence comes from the provision and placement of an appropriate smart public charging infrastructure at a level sufficient to meet demand. But this infrastructure shouldn’t needlessly clutter the environment with more street furniture that prioritises private vehicle owners and harks back to the ‘car is king’ ethos of previous planning regimes. This is the balance that DG Cities is working to strike, in designing and implementing successful strategies that work for everyone that uses our roads and pavements, whether on foot or wheels.

If you are a local authority or land owner looking to identify where to prioritise EV charging infrastructure, watch our film and get in touch to learn how we can help. You can also read insights from our government-commissioned survey into smart EV charging, and a snapshot of some of the data we gathered on the link between a council’s EV strategy and overall take-up.

Where would you charge an EV? Taking a holistic look at mobility across Greenwich housing estates

We have talked a lot about decarbonising buildings and heating in our recent blogs, so now some news of a transport project we’re excited to be getting started on. Our Head of Smart Mobility, Kim Smith introduces our latest work with the Royal Borough of Greenwich on the next generation of mobility hubs, assessing the impact of new transport solutions on the shared spaces of a housing estate.

For some time now, DG Cities has been working on projects that seek to understand the decarbonisation challenges that transport, in all its forms, brings. Transport is more than a service, it is the glue that binds together social cohesion and complex aspects of people’s lives; it facilitates access to life’s necessities, from work and admin to recreation and education. Whether you live in a city with good public transport links, or in a car-dependent rural spot, there are nuanced decisions to be made about getting from a to b.

With the phasing out of the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles getting rapidly closer, a large part of our mobility work has been looking at the infrastructure required to support the transition to electric vehicles, whether for individuals or industry. In all our research, a primary concern flagged by those we have interviewed and surveyed has been access to a reliable and fairly priced charging network.

Work done with some of our partners, including Field Dynamics as part of Project REME, has helped us look at charging solutions for the large number of people who lack access to off-street parking in rural locations. Our latest work with the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG) takes us back to an urban environment, looking at the complexities of parking and charging on the Borough’s housing estates, and exploring ways to support residents in their transition to zero-carbon vehicles.

We have benefited from the insight gained through our work with developers, particularly where we have helped them future-cast transport trends and understand the changing wants and needs of their residents over a 15 or 20 year phased build out. This helped us create a picture of changing behaviours and the flexible approach which can be applied to supporting transport requirements.

Initially, our discussions with RBG Housing were centred around supporting the transition to electric vehicles for council tenants by identifying opportunities and delivery models for siting charge points on housing estates. DG Cities takes a whole-city approach to understanding the diversity of needs – and understanding that change in one area can impact many others. The project has now developed into a more holistic look at modal choices and offers on different estates, and what could be delivered to widen access, not just to electric vehicles, but to other sustainable and active travel solutions.

Would residents want to look at identifying space in the estate for cycle schemes, e scooter trials, car club vehicles? How does this impact on the public realm and shared spaces around the estate? From these lines of enquiry, we began thinking about a bespoke mobility hub designed with the specific wants and needs (and physical limitations and opportunities) of the borough’s differing types of estate and its residents.

We’re at the very beginning of this exciting piece of work. Initially, we’re looking at different estate typologies, spread across the Borough, to develop pilot designs. Working with colleagues from Greenwich Council, we have identified five estates which fit one or other of these categories. Our research and project development approach is always human-centric, and the estate mobility hub pilots is no different – over the next three months we’ll be working with residents and Council officers to create a template for a model which could then be rolled out across Greenwich.

Watch this space…

A case study for electric vehicle infrastructure in rural areas: Moretonhampstead, Devon

Continuing our series of blogs on the shift to electric vehicles in rural areas, our Head of Smart Mobility, Kim Smith focuses on the picturesque Devon town of Moretonhampstead to explore some of the challenges of providing charging infrastructure along its ancient narrow streets. Here, she explains some of the tools for identifying gaps in provision, and how DG Cities brings it all together, working with experts across disciplines to develop a strategy to help local residents and businesses go electric.

Moretonhampstead from Hingston Rocks, Martin Bodman

REME (Rural Electric Mobility Enabler) is an Innovate UK-funded project looking at the infrastructure challenges of supporting the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) in rural areas. As part of this work, we developed several case studies identifying areas with barriers to, and opportunities for, charging infrastructure to support both residents and visitors. Overall, the project has three primary innovation strands aimed at understanding and helping address rural EV infrastructure: 

• A ‘cold mapping’ tool developed by consultancy, Field Dynamics. This is a data visualisation tool which identifies areas which are, for different reasons, not attracting public charge point provision, and where a critical number of households don’t have an option for home charging.

• The development of software company, Bonnet’s peer-to-peer platform to facilitate private charge point sharing (similar to an Airbnb model, but for EV chargers).

• A modelling tool from EDF Energy to look at car park spaces and gauge if a conventional charging solution is feasible, or if an off-grid PV/battery charging option is more viable.

The more work we do in rural areas, the more obvious it becomes that ‘levelling up’ isn’t as straightforward as the north/south divide we so often hear about. The exclusion and high levels of deprivation already experienced in some of our rural communities leaves them very much in danger of being left behind, not least when it comes to the dash to meet net-zero transport targets.

Moretonhampstead

Moretonhampstead sits on the edge of Dartmoor at the intersection of two of the very few roads which cross the moor. It’s a small market town and forms the eastern gateway to the National Park for many of its 2.3 million annual visitors. 

The town is home to a resident population of a little under 2,000, a lot of whom earn their living (directly or indirectly) from the influx of both stay and day visitors. Others rely on their cars to commute either directly or to the nearest rail link some 12 miles away. Looking at a picture of the wider area, visitor numbers on Dartmoor have remained fairly stable overall since 2003, rising from 2.3 million to 2.39 million in 2016.

Following conversations with Visit Devon and Devon County Council, a number of reasons emerged that made Moretonhampstead a good case study candidate:

• Most visitors and residents use private vehicles – there is no train service and bus services to the town are limited.

• On-street charging is not possible in many of the town’s narrow, busy streets.

• Visitor numbers are reliably high and tourism makes a major contribution to the local economy. If we look at pre-pandemic figures, revenue generated by tourism on Dartmoor has grown from £87.5 million in 2003 to over £144 million in 2016.

• Off-street parking is limited.

• Internet connections can be ‘a bit sketchy’.

• Devon County Council (a project partner) owns a public car park close to the town centre.

For Moretonhampstead, the first task was to create a ‘cold map’ to see if DG Cities’ initial research flagging the town as a candidate for further investigation was correct. The cold map is a data visualisation tool in which a number of variables can be overlaid, such as existing charge points, all available off-street parking (and therefore the option to charge at home), grid capacity, digital connectivity and footway/highway width. All of this can be plotted and analysed to assess opportunities for on-street provision, as well as investigating publicly or privately owned car parking space. The image below shows several of the data layers from the Moretonhampstead cold map:

Source: Field Dynamics. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2022

With these particular layers activated, we can see:

• The extent of Moretonhampstead – the hatched blue line. ONS classification data was used to define the rural settlements and the polygon boundaries were created by the project.

• The red dots represent households with no on-street parking, the green dots are households with one space and the orange dots are households with space for two cars.

• The Devon County Council car park is shown centre left of the map (a white dot).

• Directly south of the car park is the green pylon symbol, which denotes a substation close by with good excess capacity.

What does the cold map tell us?

The outputs from the mapping showed that more than a quarter of households in Moretonhampstead had no access to off-street parking. What the town does have, however, within 200 metres of the main square, is a Devon County Council-owned, 65-space public car park - and what’s more, the grid currently has good capacity in the area. 

Not shown in this image are the additional layers of digital connectivity (which is fair) and constraints for on-street provision because of limited street/footway width and seasonal congestion, for many of the ‘red dot’ households. The map gives us a clear, data-driven picture of the issues specific to the area, but the solutions are potentially applicable to other small market towns.

We knew there were barriers to EV charging in Moretonhampstead, but the cold map gave us a more accurate, data-based picture, allowing as to look at the town as a whole and zoom in at a street-by-street level. We found significant physical challenges, from the narrow streets and footways to grid capacity. We discovered that within a five-minute walk of the council’s car park, there are 225 households with no potential for a home charger – could they use chargers there? Are there other areas of the town where car parks or street width and grid capacity would accommodate public charge points? So, the next job for the project is to draw on EDF’s modelling tool to scope out the car park as a potential site for public charge points, and investigate whether they should be on- or off-grid. Although we’re coming to the end of this short project, work here isn’t finished; having the data allows us to help the council with suggestions about the location, type and speed of chargers that would be needed, both now and to facilitate the future uptake of EVs. Follow our blog for more on some of the solutions we proposed…

Would you let your neighbour charge their car on your driveway?

Peer-to-peer charging is just one of the strategies being explored in our REME project, which aims to grow electric vehicle use in rural areas…

As the UK’s transition from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles gathers pace, recent reports have drawn attention to potential inequity in access to charging infrastructure. Earlier this month, lobbying group, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders warned of a growing regional divide in the provision of public vehicle charging points. Last week, the Resolution Foundation thinktank highlighted the financial advantage afforded to homeowners with private driveways, who can benefit from off-peak tariffs. Our project, REME (Rural Electric Mobility Enabler) is helping to support the growth of electric vehicles in rural areas – we asked Head of Smart Mobility, Kim Smith about some of the strategies they are trialling to make it easier for every vehicle owner to make the switch.

Craig Cameron/Unsplash

REME is an Innovate UK-funded project that aims to promote and support the growth of electric vehicles in rural areas – essentially, to identify ‘where and what’ the needs are and explore strategies to meet them. To make the choice to go electric, people need to feel confident there is reliable charging infrastructure in place. DG Cities has been working with EDF Energy, Bonnet, Devon County Council and Field Dynamics on three key activities. First, establishing a ‘cold mapping’ methodology to identify potential charging sites, map needs and available connectivity - this means capturing data from advanced geospatial modelling and analysis and overlaying it on a map. Second, testing a peer-to-peer charging solution. And finally, trialling an evaluation tool for off-grid charging solutions.

Understanding demand and need

Every local authority has different priorities. In Devon, the priority is trying to work out where infrastructure needs to be put in place to support residents, as well as managing seasonal peaks in demand. As a former transport planning lead in a local authority, I have been in their position. Then, when we were assessing public requests for charging points, the number of requests in a particular location was taken as an indicator of demand. Our cold mapping exercise for REME has allowed us to look at an area in a much more nuanced way and see where the areas of real need are. In that sense, it’s a more equitable, data-driven approach.

For example, in one village, there was considerable demand from residents for charging points. We used the cold map to show that there was more than sufficient capacity from the National Grid, additionally there was a high level of digital connectivity. When we looked at the housing stock, we could also see that the majority of properties had access to private off-street parking, and on-street parking was fairly well distributed. This suggested that there were possibilities of relatively easy solutions - either people could install their own home charge points, or there could be a relatively straightforward provision of on-street units. But if the purpose of the exercise is tackling inequality, what happens if you don’t have your own drive? What happens when there’s no footway or available highway width for on street parking and your front door opens directly onto the road? One answer is developing peer-to-peer charging networks, whereby private charging points are made available to neighbours via an app, which looks after payment, hours of operation and insurance.

Finding alternative solutions

In another case study, we looked at households in Devon without off-street parking in a scenic, narrow-laned town centre. Working with project partner, Field Dynamics our cold map process identified homes where, again, it’s impossible to park on the street. This analysis also showed a council car park within walking distance, so with project partner EDF, who modelled the capacity of the car park to accommodate charge points, we investigated how the council might utilise that in a way that works for residents. Some of the different routes open to the local authority here might be acting as the delivery organisation to get charging points put in; entering into a joint venture with a charge point provider; or simply offering the space to a provider as a commercial proposition, if the area is popular with tourists, for instance. Here, potential operators have a reliable income from local residents using the infrastructure off-season, coupled with a steep rise over the summer months.

This work is vital because in rural areas, people depend more on their cars – there isn’t the same public transport network to support them when petrol and diesel are phased out. The shift to electric has to happen, but it has to be managed carefully and equitably.

REME has been a collaborative effort, both within our team, our consortium and with external agencies. English Heritage has shared useful information on visitor and vehicle numbers, and we have worked closely with Exmouth National Parks and the Forestry Commission. This allowed us to obtain real world data relating to seasonal variations in the numbers of visitors and vehicles. The advantage of working with these organisations at a local level is that we can help to inform their national strategy, while getting an understanding of how things work on the ground from site managers. We have also been looking at vehicle charging provision in holiday accommodation, from cottages and Airbnb rentals to hotels, investigating the case for asking these sites to share charge points with local residents.

Ivy Barn/Unsplash

A case study with applicability across the UK

As well as helping Devon develop their strategy, REME is valuable as a case study for other rural areas. More recently, it has informed our analysis of sites in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire with very different demographic trends, including semi-urban centres which are well serviced by public transport.

Meeting the challenge of the transition to EVs requires a mix of pragmatism and optimism for innovation. For example, a peer-to-peer strategy relies on people being willing to share their private space – to what extent will they? What are the barriers to you letting your neighbour charge their car on your driveway? One of the key issues we identified is the transaction itself, and how that process is dealt with – neighbours don’t want to physically ‘sell’ energy to each other. An important aspect of the software Bonnet is developing is that it takes care of this transaction, the booking slots, even potentially restricting who is able to use a particular charging point. In this way, homeowners retain a sense of control, while supporting their community. To better understand these views, DG Cities and EDF conducted a local survey which gathered more than 1,000 responses. This data helped us understand the exact barriers to implementing a peer-to-peer system, as well as wider challenges to EV uptake.

There’s still a lot of work to do, but if we look at the popularity of an idea like Airbnb, where many people have welcomed the concept of letting guests stay in their spare rooms, there is clearly some appetite and scope to extend this to vehicles. As with any innovation, it comes down to the community – if public engagement is successful, if people understand the potential benefits of the idea and how it works in practice, and if they trust the systems in place, it has the potential to be transformative. The end goal is cleaner, greener and safer transport that is available to all.

Expect innovation, plan for change: a new framework to assess future mobility needs

On the launch of the Mobility Assessment Framework, Kim Smith, our Head of Smart Mobility, draws on her experience forecasting our future transport needs and evaluating competitive tenders to explain the rationale behind this useful new planning tool…

Before joining DG Cities, I spent twenty-five years working in transport planning, delivery and shaping policy in local government. As the lead on transport strategy, I had to review tenders that were worth huge sums of public money, yet I had to develop and rely on my own matrix to judge the bids. We developed the Mobility Assessment Framework (MAF) to give transport planners in a similar position the ability to assess and compare different modes, but also a means to evaluate them against each other and a set of KPIs. Equally important, this tool gives them a quantitative basis to validate their decision. For FOI requests and transparency, I know that having this clear, auditable format to the decision-making process can be really useful.

During my career, I have also worked with developers on major, long-term projects, which were built in phases over decades. Right now, our mobility options are changing so rapidly – it would have been hard to imagine just two years ago the extent to which we have seen e-scooter hire services rolled out, for example. How do developers know which modes of transport to incorporate? Invariably, the travel plan in year one will look very different to what is needed in year twenty-five. If a site has limited space and the developer wants to put in a mobility hub for residents, do they integrate electric bikes, or do they save space for car clubs or private electric vehicles? How do they lock in the level of flexibility required to incorporate innovation? The MAF was devised to aid this kind of decision-making and identify the most spatially and environmentally efficient solutions, which can deliver the greatest benefits to users.

When I was working on these projects, I did a lot of future-casting based on behavioural change, trends in mobility, modal change and the potential impacts of demographic change, as well as exploring the potential of new technologies and innovations in the sector. This has all informed the development of the MAF and its KPIs. Importantly, the tool helps us to evaluate different transport options quantitatively and with flexibility; developers can revise their mobility assessment every five years and input what has worked, what hasn’t and forecast the next advance on the horizon that might influence planning.

When our team at DG Cities started to develop the MAF, it was a standalone product, but we soon saw the advantage of using it in a very tailored way and working with local authorities, developers and mobility service providers to adapt it very precisely to their needs. It has a dataset with fifty variables, which can be benchmarked against eleven KPIs. At its most basic, we can simply plug in the data and draw direct comparisons. But I think one of the most interesting aspects is the ability to calibrate it – to give weighting to different indicators according to circumstances and strategic priorities. In this way, it’s a very clever tool to help planners focus on overall targets, whether financial or environmental. I’m really looking forward to working with our clients to put it into practice in a range of different contexts. 

To find out more about the Mobility Assessment Framework, you can download our summary report or get in touch.