UC Davis GIS EV Planning Toolbox for MPOs

Welcome to the GIS UC Davis GIS EV Planning Toolbox! This tool was made possible through funding from the California Energy Commission and through discussion with Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in California. It is intended to be used for planning the location of plug-in electric vehicle charging infrastructure in California. It can be used more broadly, but datasets are only provided for California. There are three modules: Market Toolbox, Workplace Charging Toolbox, and Fast Charging toolbox. It is free to download due to funding from the California Energy Commission.

What does it do?

The tool has two main uses. First it suggests the location of demand based on a market size input from the user (the tool tells you where people may buy if you give it a target market size e.g. 1,000,000 vehicles). Second, it provides the location and magnitude anticipated demand for infrastructure given a market location. It does not provide guidance for implementation (permitting, construction, costs, placement etc). The tool outputs the number of anticipated charging events and number of kWh by location. Locations are not specific, but are generally within a 1-2 mile area.

What software do I need?

You need ArcView 10.x to run the market and workplace charging tool. You will need ArcGIS 10.x to run the fast charging tool.

Who is the Tool Designed for?

The tool was originally designed for use by MPOs, but many organizations and individual researchers can benefit from using it. Some results may be less applicable to a specific site host, although fast charger siting can be a little more specific. It is very useful to construct scenarios for different vehicle types (BEV, PHEV) and different battery sizes.

Tool Limitations

This tool does not tell you the answers! It provides a framework to investigate the market and relationships between charging and travel. It is up to the user to make decisions on what to include or not include for consideration. It is a tool, which means you still have to do the “construction”. It should however provide many shortcuts and suggestions.

Tool Flow

1. Create a market distribution with the market tool, or skip market tool and simply define the market a priori
   1. Define the market size you want to evaluate e.g. 1,000,000 vehicles
   2. Define the importance of income, garage, and commute on the purchase decision or use suggested defaults
   3. Get as an output the number of long range PEVs (PHEVs, BEV >150 miles range) and short distance PEVs (BEV <150 miles range) by census block group from the tool.
2. Run the workplace charging tool
   1. Define what comprises the long range PEVs (e.g. 10% PHEV10, 40% PHEV20, 40% PHEV50, 10% BEV 250) and short range PEVs (e.g. 50% BEV80, 50% BEV120). Or specify specific numbers of vehicles by census block group/zip code if known
   2. Choose free or paid charging and other parameters
   3. Get number of events and kWh by census block group
3. Run the fast charging tool
   1. Define number of BEVs that have fast charging and their ranges on a county level. You can take county estimates from the market tool.
   2. Choose to either include or exclude work trips
   3. Choose amount of level 2 penetration
   4. Run tool to get location of demand by road segment
   5. Optional: choose existing sites to evaluate potential use under different vehicles scenarios
   6. Optional: choose planned sites to evaluate potential use under different vehicles scenarios given existing sites
   7. Optional: give model potential sites to choose “next best” site to install charger given planned and existing chargers
   8. Optional: get temporal demand for kWh at each hour of the day at each site

GIS Toolbox Video Tutorials

The PH&EV Center hosted a live webinar in 2015 to demonstrate the use of the GIS Toolbox. Recordings from that webinar are available to view in sections below.