[Paul_Moxhay]

Ecotricity have introduced a different style of map for the Highway. Instead of showing the status of all of the chargers at once it now doesn't show the individual chargers until you zoom in.

I HATE IT!

It will make route planning much more difficult as you cannot zoom out and get an overview of the chargers on your route and whether they are faulty or not.

I suspect that this is why they have changed it. No longer is it easy to see how many chargers are red. In fact, it will make seeing the overall status of the network almost impossible.

This is the first move that I have seen Ecotricity make that is clearly against EV drivers interests.

Shame.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Well, I think there might be a hidden agenda in the change. Now it is almost impossible to count the red blobs and highlight the degree of failures.

Paul, you clearly are not as cyncial as me!

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Thanks Matt... the charger locations are scripted in HTML.

That doesn't work in Firefox BTW... it finds the occurrences but doesn't give a count.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

I think I am with Matt on this one.

I agree they do deserve our support but I am not of the opinion that they should just be left to get on with it regardless of the level of service without comment.

Yes, they are currently free, but they are making them available for us to use and so they must want us to use them (or else why install them?) and if they want us to use them then they must be reliable enough for us to to just that of they are wasting their time and money.

I do not see us raising the issue of their lack of reliability as a complaint. I see it as giving them valuable feedback on how we feel about their current service and a reminder to them, and everyone else, just what is needed to create a viable rapid charger network. It is feedback to them and others as to the current state of play and I will continue to do it.

I have had to cancel a trip to London on Monday because of M4 chargers are down. What am I meant to do? Just say... are well... I haven't paid so I can't complain? That gets us no further forward. It needs us all to give them our support whist raising any issues publicaly.

I want the map to change because this clustered version is rubbish for route planning. However, there is no point in them hiding the red blobs if that was also their intention. The better approach is to fix the issues and turn them green.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

It would probably take a bit longer than that. If they are doing what I expect them to be doing they will hold the core data on a database and the map is generated from that database whenever they want to refresh the online map. Mind you, it should take them long create something simple usable across all hardware platforms.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Yes, I am also a software developer and have used the Google Maps API and that I why I said it wouldn't take long (day or two max IMO)

My point though is that you and I can do what we want... a company normally has other considerations and other interested parties so it takes longer.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

OCM would work great for this kind of app but only if there was a real-time, or daily at minimum, automated data exchange from Ecotricity to OCM.

As it stands, OCM works for location info as that doesn't change much from day to day, hour to hour, but is of very limited use for status info simply because it currently needs manual updates. Get Ecotricity, and the others, to provide a regular, at least daily, data update of status and then OCM starts to look much more viable for this kind of app.

When OCM is interfaced with car systems like OVMS and all cars have it installed, then we might not need these data interfaces. Until then, even when some cars have OVMS, and some people update the status manually, it still is only part of the picture so is of limited use for status reporting.

So, if we can convince Ecotricity, Chargemaster etc to send OCM regular, at least daily, status updates of all their chargers via an agreed data interface/process it would be a good start

I think that might be a way off yet

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Yes but scraping breaches copyright unless you have permission.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Apparently it doesn't, my company does it as a matter of course and although other companies don't like it there's nothing they can do about it, European court ruling so I'm told.

Good luck with that. I believe it is in breach and I think it would be risky and it wouldn't win any friends amongst those we want as friends long term

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Really? I didn't know it did routing - must try it out.

It doesn't. But there is nothing stopping someone writing an app that does it

OCM is not an app. It is a database. Chris has written an app to use the data but the idea is that others write apps to use the open data. There is an open API and a lot of the data is open data. Some is copyright though and cannot be used without the owners permission.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

I'm baffled as to why charger network operators don't just maintain databases which can then be slapped onto any mapping background by any user.

Neither do I but the reason they frequently give is that the data is commercially valuable. In other words, they believe they can make money out of offering that data.

Also, I looked last year at how OSM handled chargers and it didn't seem to be a particularly well developed part of the system. As I want a nice project to work on to understand how all these new-fangled computers and internet works[1] I've put "fathoming OSM and fixing charge points" on my to-do list. Though, I'm sure it'll all be made wonderful before I get round to it.

I agree, Open Street Map (OSM) doesn't do EV charging well at the moment at all.nd it really annoys me![/quote]

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

I'm trying to envisage a scenario whereby keeping the locations of your outlets secret gives you any sort of commercial benefit. It would be like Shell trying to keep its petrol stations off Google maps.

I can see how knowledge of the size and penetration of your network may be commercially valuable - but by the nature of the service, that info is public domain the moment you put it up on your own web site.

It isn't just locations but also status. Status is perhaps something they could sell... Not my words but theirs

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

OCM is not the right place for this kind of historic data IMO. It would not fit into the current database schema and so the database would need to be redesigned.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

OCM isn't an app. OK, there is an app on the web site but that isn't the primary purpose of OCM.

OCM is a database that is intended to be a database of charging stations for others to build their apps upon. The app that is on the OCM web site is just an example.

I accept that there is a mobile OCM app too but again, that is just an example for others.

@snfosberry If you want "is it in use" then I think the only way that info will be available with any degree of accuracy is via the network operator's own web site. At the moment, as far as I know, there is no real-time data feeds to OCM and the way it is looking I think that is unlikely in the near future.