Charge Place Scotland network: FOI release

Information requested

1. Status of each charging socket on the network during the last 6 months (May – November 2021)

2. Number of charges refused / aborted

3. Proportion of time in service,

4. Out of service and unknown status,

5. Number of reported faults

6. Time elapsed between report and verified repair

7. Number of fault repair visits.

8. Number of routine maintenance visits.

9. Number of chargers where the same faults are reported by the public on more than one occasion

10. Periods where a charger was out of service and where the next nearest charger is more than 10km (or requiring a ferry journey)

11. Number of calls to the call centre – daily breakdown of call volume

12. Frequency of calls where the response time is greater than 5 minutes (time from call inception to connection with an operator)

13. Copy of reviews / evaluations of past performance,

14. Plans and policies in place to improve and enhance reliability of the network

15. Outline operating costs of managing the network, annualised for the previous 5 years.
 

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because:

• An exception under regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex 2.
• Only owners of the charge point will hold certain information.
• Only suppliers/ maintainers of the charge points will hold certain information.
• The contract for the running of the ChargePlace Scotland electric vehicle charging network transferred from BP Pulse to SWARCO on 27 July 2021. Not all information was transferred in the work stream migration as deemed not required - no impact on the running of the network.
• Unable to retrieve information as it is not captured/ out with the key performance indicators for the framework agreement.

Please note While a wide range of performance data is generated and used to improve CPS the data may not be held or be available in the specific form or format being requested. Where this is the case, we have provided a reason and endeavoured to provide the best comparable
data. Improving the consumer experience and reliability of the service is an ongoing process, and steps are being taken to improve consumer access to performance information.

The Information provided from May to 26 July 2021 is taken from documents which were already held or supplied by BP Pulse at the migration of CPS and from 27 July to November 2021 information is provided by SWARCO.

1. The authority does not hold information on each charging socket’s status over a 6 month period. The charge point management system is not set up to record historical socket status information in this fashion. However, historical fault records for charge point units may provide the requestor with a degree of useful insight into charge point statuses over the last 6 months, see Annex 6 attached. Please note there are over 2100 charge points on the CPS network and Annex 6 only provides those charge points that CPS are informed about. A charge point status can be different from what CPS record due to various reasons, such as an owner choosing to switch the charge point off for repair, maintenance, road works etc but fail to inform CPS, therefore a true calculation for charge point status cannot be deemed as accurate based on the information provided.

2. The authority does not hold information which explicitly indicates aborted/refused charging sessions. However, it may be helpful to refer to the attached Annex 5 spreadsheet which highlights all charge sessions completed. Note that it is not possible to accurately determine what is an aborted/ refused charge session, as there could be many reasons why a charge session did not complete fully, for example, a driver changes their mind, moves to another charge point etc. Without gaining information from the driver at that point in time assumptions need to be made rather than accurate reasons as to why the session did not continue. Furthermore, there are no agreed limits for how much Kwh should be used before the session is classed as refused/ aborted, therefore, a true calculation for charges refused/ aborted cannot be deemed as accurate based on the information provided.

3. The authority does not record explicit information on how much time a unit is in a particular status over a historical period. The requestor may find it useful to refer to the fault listings in Annex 6, as a broad understanding of how much time a unit is in-service can be inferred from this dataset. However, there are some limitations with the attached dataset: note May to July - not all fault listings have a "closed" date applied. This data was taken from fortnightly fault listings which were provided to Transport Scotland by BP Pulse but not all closed ticket information was notified to Transport Scotland, therefore not all information regarding the charge point/ ticket is recorded on this spreadsheet. July and August, and part of September - have some inaccurate closure dates. This is due to the initial ticket process and discovery that the “resolution” section,
was not closing the ticket correctly. This led to a period of ticket clear up in September itself to ensure historic tickets were closed correctly, and development to ensure ticket completion was timestamped correctly. duplicate tickets may be listed as more than one call can be received for the same fault on the same charge point on the same day. Also when a charge point fails to communicate with the back office an automatic ticket is opened, these tickets should automatically close when communication is regained but this does not always happen due to the length of time the charge point has been out of communication, therefore a true calculation for time in service cannot be deemed as accurate based on the information provided.

4. The authority does not record explicit information on how much time a unit is in a particular status over a historical period. The requestor may find it useful to refer to the fault listings in Annex 6, as a broad understanding of how much time a unit is out-of-service can be inferred from this dataset. However, there are some limitations with the attached dataset: note, as above, not all fault listings from May to July have a "closed" date. This is due to the information being reported on a fortnightly basis and not all closed ticket information was notified to Transport Scotland. July and August, and part of September - have some inaccurate closure dates. This is due to the initial ticket process and discovery that the “resolution” section, was not closing the ticket correctly. This led to a period of ticket clear up in September itself to ensure historic tickets were closed correctly, and development to ensure ticket completion was timestamped correctly duplicate tickets may be listed as more than one call can be received for the same fault on the same charge point on the same day. Also when a charge point fails to communicate with the back office an automatic ticket is opened, these tickets should automatically close when communication is regained but this does not always happen due to the length of time the charge point has been out of communication. Most faults on the network are transient and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention. This means that a high proportion are closed down swiftly and effectively within 48 hours, therefore a true calculation for time out of service or unknown status cannot be deemed as accurate based on the information provided.

5. Attached see Annex 6. Please note from July all calls to the back office are recorded on a ticket therefore duplicate tickets may be listed as more than one call can be received for the same fault on the same charge point on the same day. Also when a charge point fails to communicate with the back office an automatic ticket is opened, these tickets should automatically close when communication is regained but this does not always happen due to the length of time the charge point has been out of communication. Most faults on the network are transient and in the majority of cases require no physical intervention. This means that a high proportion are closed down swiftly and effectively within 48 hours, therefore a true calculation for the number of reported faults can not be deemed as accurate based on the information provided.

6. Average time = 19hours & 40minutes. Please note this is calculated from 27 July to 11 November and from time of reported fault to verified repair. Those charge points still waiting to be repaired are not included in this calculation. This information is not available from May to 26 July 2021.

7. This information is not held by the authority. All repair visits are arranged between the owner of the charge point and the supplier/manufacturer of the charge point. ChargePlace Scotland’s role is report the fault to the owner who is then responsible for making arrangements for a repairer to attend to the fault . Please contact the owner of the charge point to gain this information.

8. This information is not held by the authority as all routine maintenance visits are arranged between the owner of the charge point and the supplier of the charge point. Please contact the owner of the charge point to gain this information.

9. Attached see Annex 6. This information can be calculated from the July to November fault listing spreadsheet, but is not available for May to July 2021.

10. The authority does not hold information which can be used to determine the next nearest operational charge point to one which is out-of-service.

11. See Annex 1 attached.

12. Please note this information is not held by the authority and is not a Key Performance Indicator set out in the Framework Agreement between Scottish Ministers and SWARCO eVolt Ltd.

13. Except under regulation 10(5)(e). See Annex 2 attached.

14. See Annex 3 attached.

15. See Annex 4 attached.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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