[Paul_Moxhay]

I wonder if there is any mileage in fund-raising to pay for someone to collate all the charging point location information and contact each site to ensure the information is as correct and clear as possible?

If you are talking about just the ZCW sites then IMO ZCW could do that simply by calling each location and checking what they have and making sure their map is correct. Perhaps they should be or are doing that already?

On the other hand, if you mean all charging locations then what you are asking seems perfectly reasonable and at first glance but this is not a simple task. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is an unreasonable expectation to have any map/database 100% complete, up to date and correct. There are many reasons for this...

Firstly, charge points are being installed every day throughout the country and if there is no requirement for a central authority to be notified then there is no likelihood that they will get onto maps.

Whilst it makes sense for every charging network to notify the maps of changes to their infrastructure they often consider their data commercially sensitive or valuable (don't ask me why but some of them do!) so they are very reluctant to share their data. I cannot see this changing until it becomes compulsory for them to share.

Some of the better databases such a Open Charge Map and Plugshare require updates from the community and these are often untimely and/or inaccurate.

There is a OLEV run project called the National Chargepoint Registry (NCR) which was intended to list the charge locations in the UK but again, there is no legal or other requirement for that database to be notified so it is no better than any of the others.

In conclusion then... some maps are better than others but no maps will be complete or accurate enough to be used as the single source of charge location information. We must use many maps, often cross-referenced against each other, to get to something near the truth and even that should be considered with caution. Best always to call up the location and get up to date info if at all possible.

This is the current state of affairs... shame but true.

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Then we will have a useful, up to date, well populated EV Charging Location map of all EV Charging facilities for the EV people by the EV people

That is fine in theory and it can be good but by its very nature of being updated by the community it also is going to be inherently incomplete.

Don't get me wrong... I support OCM and it has the potential of being the very best charging location database, if it is not that already... but even as the best it will still not be complete and the fact that it is community driven is both good and bad IMO.

FWIW OCM is my map/database of first call... then zap-map and plugshare. That pretty much covers most of what is out there... and of course the Ecotricity map... goes without saying!

 

[Paul_Moxhay]

Are there better ways of capturing all the EV Charging Station locations?

Not at the moment. Until it become compulsory to register with the NCR then it is always going to be a bit hit and miss. OVMS might help but it could only help as it would require everyone to have OVMS for it to capture everything.

I realise we are "complaining", if you want to call it that, without having a better alternative but IMO that is down to the government... they should have made it a requirement to register all publicly accessible locations with the NCR and made sure it happened.