THE top 20 local authorities with the greatest need for kerbside electric vehicle charging, to enable company van drivers to switch to EVs, have been named by the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP).
The list is headed by Birmingham City Council, the City of Edinburgh Council, and the London Borough of Croydon Council, with major urban centres featuring prominently.
The AFP’s findings are based on the association’s new kerbside charging map, launched last month, showing where UK businesses need kerbside charging to be installed close to homes of van-driving employees.
The comprehensive map was created in two phases. Firstly, net-zero analytics consultancy Field Dynamics produced a dataset that scored each household on whether there was space to park and charge a van, for each of the country’s 28 million homes.
This information was then overlaid with records containing the addresses of 75,000 van drivers employed by AFP members.
The map is aggregated to local authority level, scoring the UK’s 408 local councils, and rankings are based on the number of drivers in each area who need kerbside EV charging. Paul Hollick, AFP chair, said:
The requirement for kerbside charging remains the single biggest obstacle to the adoption of electric vans for businesses. Without the ability to charge overnight, the whole operational model quickly falls apart.
We believe that around 60-70% of fleet van drivers need kerbside charging installed near to their home in order to use an electric van. Our aim is that each of them will have facilities installed within a safe 4-5 minute walk.
What the map does is provide our members with hard data that allows them to approach partners such as local authorities and charging providers, and show exactly where chargers need to be sited. This is a crucial step forward.
These new rankings are a good indication of the places where most work needs to be done. What they have in common is that these are heavily populated, urban areas where there is a large proportion of homes without driveways such as terraced houses and apartments.
The AFP is keen for more fleets to add their data to make the map increasingly comprehensive, and would like to hear from businesses who would be able to contribute anonymised and regulated van driver information.
A summary of the map is available from the AFP, and a detailed version can be obtained by emailing the association.
The rankings in full are:
- Birmingham City Council
- City of Edinburgh Council
- London Borough of Croydon
- Glasgow City Council
- London Borough of Newham
- Leeds City Council
- London Borough of Enfield
- Bristol City Council
- Buckinghamshire Council
- Wiltshire Council
- London Borough of Lewisham
- London Borough of Waltham Forest
- London Borough of Greenwich
- London Borough of Southwark
- London Borough of Haringey
- London Borough of Haringey
- Medway Council
- Plymouth City Council
- Liverpool City Council
- Portsmouth City Council
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
Why not join the conversation on SME fleets – visit our LinkedIn SME Fleet Discussion page
