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Charge Point Etiquette at Park and Rides

3K views 27 replies 16 participants last post by  IanMurray 
#1 ·
Ok, a newbie question here...couldn’t find the answer in a quick search so I’ll pose the question.

At some park and rides there are EV chargepoints.

I had always thought that the idea of the public charge points was that you charged up, then vacated the space so someone else could use it.

but the whole point of P&R is that you park up and take the tram/bus/metro etc into town.

so is it usual/accepted practice at P&R charge points to rock up, plug in and go to town for the day, even though you’ll only be charging for say the first hour?

we are awaiting delivery of our first EV and it would be useful to know what is and is not considered to be the “right thing” under these circumstances ??
 
#2 ·
Yep, that’s about the size of it, as long as they’re the slower destination type chargers.

If they’re Rapid chargers, then it’s a bit different, but they really shouldn’t be putting those at park and ride sites really, unless it’s just a convenient place with sufficient power and space to act as a rapid charge hub too.

Putting rapids on the same site will lead to misuse or confusion though, and possibly overstay fees as well dependent on the charge point operating company and its policies.
 
#3 ·
in general, yes, but I’d just query the “only be charging for the first hour” point. I’ve got a 40kwh Leaf; visited Salisbury recently arriving with about 50% charge, had no qualms plugging into the Park & Ride 7kw charger even though I would probably only charge for half the day, because I needed the charge.

However, if I had driven in from nearer, arriving with say 80% charge, so easily able to get back home without charging, I wouldn’t have hogged the charger all day just for a free 20% top up.
 
#4 ·
There are so many scenarios here:
  • Fast or Rapid charge points
  • Length of charge vs. length of stay
  • "Need" for the charge
The simplest way would be to equip the majority of the parking slots with fast charge points and to cost by the length of time connected. Perhaps then there could be a service of someone paid to move cars when their charge is complete?
 
#5 ·
It really isn't this complicated. Destination chargers are provided to be used for the length of your stay at a destination. If it's a shopping centre that may be an hour or two. If you're at a P+R or station then this would likely be all day. There's nothing you can do about moving your car when the charge is complete because you've parked and ridden! How is it fair to charge for the length of time connected to a destination charger? The time you're parked is covered by the parking cost anyway and the cost of electricity is charged, or not depending on the charge point providers reason for installing them, on a unit cost basis.

The issue is not about whether cars should be moved when the charge is complete, but the provision of greater numbers of detination chargers.

As to having a service where you leave your car keys to allow someone to shuffle your car around a car park, there's not a chance that I'd do that.
 
#8 ·
is it usual/accepted practice at P&R charge points to rock up, plug in and go to town for the day, even though you’ll only be charging for say the first hour?
What sort of car are you getting? P&R are normally slow chargers, maximum 16A (at least in Sweden) and even my PHEV takes 3,5h to charge fully at that rate, an EV takes considerably longer, so what's the point of plugging your car in for an hour? Anyway, P&R is just what it is, you park and then ride a train or bus or something else. If there is no maximum parking time rule then you do as you like. The problem is that tere are not enough chargers, not how long people park. As long as the rules are followed, you can't really comment the behaviour. Limiting the parking time until the car is charging would be counterproductive, since if I want to, I can set the charging current to very low, which would give me extra time and you'd still not get my space.
 
#9 ·
It has been estimated that if EV charging is installed at the same time a car park is constructed, it costs around £150 per space to install. Retrofitting will be more expensive, but the cost of doing so will decrease if a large number of EV spaces are installed up front (as the cost is often driven by getting the power into the building rather than anything else.)

A car needs about 11.5m^2 of space (4.8m x 2.4m), plus manouvering room, so around 20m^2 per space. That puts the average parking space at ~£10k to £20k in a multistorey:

I think it would be safe to say around 1/4 of that for a surface only car park, but still, about 20x more than the cost for charging infrastructure.

It really isn't that expensive to put charging in. If there's demand for it and it brings more customers in, car parks will do it.
 
#10 ·
I see the figures differently. For an open ground level carpark it costs around £4-5k per space outside of London, and retrofitting costed EV charge points around £2k each. So the cost is significant, particularly for cash strapped local authorities with existing carparks and concerns about ongoing maintenance.
 
#11 ·
@dk6780 But that's primarily because they're installing 2~4 charging points at a time.

If they took the Norwegian approach, say, and installed 100+ charging points into a car park, the cost per charging point would reduce considerably, as most of the work is not scaled with the number of charging points. (You still need an upgraded mains supply; you still need to do groundworks to install cable ducts, but you can do 50 in a day instead of 4.)
 
#15 ·
The one I have used had both rapid and standard chargers so I just sat for 20 mins on rapid then moved to standard charger bay and left car to charge. I think that is good etiquette.
 
#16 ·
so is it usual/accepted practice at P&R charge points to rock up, plug in and go to town for the day, even though you’ll only be charging for say the first hour?
So assuming your name is somewhat descriptive....

Somewhere like Elland Road Park and Ride has 1 Rapid 50kW charger and 8+ "fast" 7kW chargers. Those 7kW ones are the ones where it's reasonable to plug in for a few hours because a) there's more of them and b) it takes a few hours to get a significant charge.

Plugging into the rapid charger and going into town is likely to result in you getting charged overstay fees.
 
#17 ·
Well spotted @Weebull .

wasn't really thinking of Elland Road, would either drive into town or go by train when I go to Leeds.

Was more thinking of the Ingliston P and R at Edinburgh where I’d almost certainly need a charge of some sort and there are loads of chargers (but I don’t know if they are rapid or 7s as last time I went we weren’t contemplating an EV, I just saw them and thought “interesting”)
 
#23 ·
Was more thinking of the Ingliston P and R at Edinburgh where I’d almost certainly need a charge of some sort and there are loads of chargers (but I don’t know if they are rapid or 7s...
Zap-map is your friend. That one is similar, but.... Only 4x 7kW (Well 22kW in this case, but Type-2 is the important thing) and 2 are currently marked as faulty.
 
#25 ·
My local Park & Ride has never had every charge point occupied to my knowledge so I need not worry about hogging the charger.

If I only needed an hours charge when I arrived I would not bother. But as my Polar subscription gives me free charging I make sure my car will be charging for as long as I am perked there.
 
#27 ·
Nearest to me is Lancaster and there I think it's quite simple.

There are rapids for people who are just nipping off the M6 for a charge as they don't trust the Ecotrickery ones or whatever. Usual rapid charging stuff applies - there are solid rules with fines for overstay (can't remember exactly I think £10/hour after 90 minutes?) and you should also generally be courteous if it's busy and stop at 80%ish (or whenever your EV tails off) if you don't need more. Then again, it's unlikely at this stage to ever be busy enough to care, so within the limits set by Polar themselves, fill your boots.

There are a decent (for now) number of destination chargers for people to park and ride. It's a convenience so you don't have to sit there for however long on the rapid before or after your visit into the city. First come first served, park there plugged in for as long as it takes like any destination.
 
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#28 ·
Worcester has a new park and ride railway station, Worcestershire Parkway, it opened a week ago with 26 x Type 2, 22kW chargers and a further 480 car parking spaces for gas guzzlers plus space for car park expansion. Great to see something done correctly. Just off junction 7 of the M5. Ideal for trips to Birmingham, London, or Cardiff.
 
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