This project will both expand the current GIS (geographic information system) EV (electric vehicle) Planning Toolbox for use nationally and incorporate new research into the toolbox. The researchers were previously funded $500,000 to make a California-centric GIS based toolbox to estimate the market for EVs and assess charging related to fast charging and workplace charging needs. Being a tool, users can input their own assumptions to create custom scenarios. Over half of the entities that expressed interest in the tool or downloaded it were outside of California, though, and immediately encountered issues translating the tool to their data and geography. The researchers could not devote significant resources to expanding and updating the tool; however, through this process they developed ideas to generalize the tool.
This project will use those ideas to make a national tool that anyone can download and use. This scope allows the researchers to update the EV market and workplace charging tool by directly partnering with an entity trying to use the tool: the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. The researchers will modify assumptions and adapt the tools for continuously variable geographic scope necessary when States do not represent natural activity boundaries.