Infrastructure planning part 4: Accessibility of Public Charging Infrastructure - Not an Afterthought
Welcome to our infrastructure planning series. Public EV charging infrastructure is a key enabler for the transition to battery electric vehicles in the UK. In our previous blog, we have introduced a league table by Local Authorities as a measure of desirable public infrastructure deployment outcome based on sociodemographic and housing.
In this blog we introduce accessibility of public charging infrastructure as an important planning aspect considering accessibility design of:
charging bays
charging points used to charge EVs
digital enablement of the provisioning of public EV charging services
so that people with disability can equally well charge their electric vehicles.
Making design changes to EV charging infrastructure already deployed can be complex and expensive. It is therefore suggested that accessibility is an important criterium with regards to
· the suitability of public infrastructure
· future regulatory compliance of public infrastructure
· and the value embedded in public infrastructure as a business.
As the EV infrastructure market scales up, taking accessibility into consideration is a pre-requisite and not an afterthought and should be considered assessing whether public EV charging infrastructure is fit for purpose.
Whether you are a chargepoint manufacturer, a chargepoint operator, a infrastructure investor or a Local Authority, accessibility of public EV charging infrastructure should form part of product and services evaluations.
PAS1899 can provide some guidance as to what should be considered to make charging infrastructure accessible.
Technotrans will offer a free service to register any charging point in England and Wales that supports accessibility as part of the wider EV infrastructure provision that will be considered as part of ECLIPS-R infrastructure league table by authority.
Register your accessible charging point.
Working together for a better EV user experience.