California has not been shy in its ambition to have five million electric vehicles (EVs) on its roads by 2023. While admirable, there’s a catch to any push for more EVs—the greater number of electric vehicles there are in a given area, the more EV charging solutions there need to be available. Besides cost, “range anxiety” is one of the biggest concerns people have for switching to electric vehicles. Drivers want peace of mind knowing that if their vehicle is running low on power, there will be somewhere nearby to recharge—much like the have right now with a gas-powered vehicle.
A Silicon Valley city recently ran into this very issue. It wanted to support the state’s EV goal, but also understood it would need to significantly increase its EV charging networks and mobile charging solutions. The only problem was the city didn’t know where to put more than 400 public EV chargers that would help encourage EV adoption and use.
City planners turned to Siemens ITS Digital Lab and StreetLight Data to help them analyze the EV requirements for zones within the city jurisdiction. The EV data team looked beyond areas with high traffic density to determine the best places for charging infrastructure development. Other metrics to help them draw conclusions included commuter traffic, population income, multi-family environments and average journey lengths. Taking this data helped planners find and prioritizes the best zones for public charging stations and encourage people to support EV adoption.
“This partnership helps communities develop initiatives to support EV adoption and prioritize EV infrastructure deployment,” Siemens’ Laura Sanchez said.
Finding zones for new EV infrastructure
Personal trip information, traveler demographics, trip length and purpose and current EV charging stations’ locations were among the metrics the Siemens and StreetLight Data teams used to find spots for new public charging stations. The team then created a custom dashboard that included slider inputs for each metric.
By adjusting the sliders to reflect the different zones’ data, city planners could identify and prioritize locations to put new EV fleet charging stations. Additionally, the analysis identified and discarded any trips that external commuters made so only the city’s residents’ information was included in the data.
Final Verdict
After the planners found the top five zones, they dove deeper into the metrics and saw that most personal vehicle trips in those areas were less than 30 miles. Meanwhile, the analysis showed that commercial trips made within the city were completed in less than 20 minutes, were shorter than 10 miles and speeds were less than 20 miles per hour.
Based on this analysis, given that there were so many short-distance trips, a potential to shift both personal and commercial traffic to EVs was indicated. It was noted that commercial EVs could complete a number of short trips on just one charge, which could significantly reduce emissions. Additionally, some zones that registered a high number of trips already had private EV charging stations in use, further reinforcing potential demand for public access in these areas.
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