Expanding the UC Davis GIS Electric Vehicle Planning Toolbox Beyond California

Plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) are quickly moving to the broader consumer market. While the home is still the primary location for recharging these vehicles, public EV charging infrastructure at workplaces, public destinations, and along travel corridors will be critical for the continued market growth of EVs. Governments will need to ensure that sufficient charging infrastructure is available at these locations to meet future demand. Researchers at the University of California, Davis Plug-In Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center previously developed a planning toolbox for public charging infrastructure based on data available in California. The toolbox is a user-friendly set of modeling tools that allows planners to anticipate the future geographic distribution of EVs and the resulting optimal locations of charging infrastructure. To date, however, the tools have only been applied in California contexts with California-specific data. For this project, the UC Davis researchers adapted the toolbox to be used outside of California, collaborating with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to develop a case study for using this toolbox for EV infrastructure planning in the Greater Philadelphia region. This policy brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides policy implications. View the NCST Project Webpage