Zap Vehicle Charging are UK leaders in electric vehicle charging with innovative solutions for homes, workplaces and commercial organisations. Our mission is to drive Zap and its range of electric vehicle chargers to being the most advanced smart solution for all customers, retailers or manufacturers. ZAP aims to be the ideal choice in the EV charging UK and Europe.

Recent studies show that charging stations are operated in an inefficient way. Due to the fact that electric vehicle (EV) drivers charge while they park, they tend to keep the charging station occupied while not charging. This prevents others from having access. This study is the first to investigate the effect of a pricing strategy to increase the efficient use of electric vehicle charging stations. We used a stated preference survey among EV drivers to investigate the effect of a time-based fee to reduce idle time at a charging station. We tested the effect of such a fee under different scenarios and we modelled the heterogeneity among respondents using a latent class discrete choice model. We find that a fee can be very effective in increasing the efficiency at a charging station but the response to the fee varies among EV drivers depending on their current behaviour and the level of parking pressure they experience near their home. From these findings we draw implications for policy makers and ev charging point operators who aim to optimize the use of electric vehicle charging stations.

The transport sector in Europe, which accounts for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, is the only main sector that has not been able to reduce emissions over the past 25 years. Electric vehicles (EVs) show great promise to meet CO2 reduction targets in the transport domain and to reduce local air pollution. Adoption of these vehicles is starting to take off as the main barriers, being the purchase price and the limited range due to high battery costs, are overcome by the introduction of more affordable, long range EVs into the market. One of the opportunities EVs offer in comparison to other Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFVs) is the possibility of charging the car while being parked. This reduces the need for fast refuelling stations. Cars are parked 90-95% of the time, which provides the opportunity to overcome problems of limited range and long recharging times even with currently available short range vehicles. This requires instalment of (public) charging infrastructure at places where users park their cars such as at home, at work, or at public facilities such as shopping centres.

Investments in the necessary charging infrastructure have been trailing due to chicken-and-egg related problems. In order to solve this, governments stepped in to facilitate basic public charging infrastructure. Efficient use of the limited available charging stations is important in early adoption phases to ensure a positive experience for early adopters and to reduce resistance among nonadopters. Effective usage triggers high throughput which in turn creates a positive business case for charging point operators. Descriptive statistics in the scientific literature and experiences in the field, however, show that efficiency at both slow and fast charging stations is not optimal. At slow (level 2) public charging stations (up to 11 kW) only 20 to 40% of the time connected to the charging station is actually used for charging. At fast charging stations these rates are better, but idle times are more costly because charging speeds are higher.