Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Location Identification Toolkit (ILIT)

The Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Location Identification Toolkit  for the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast states provides resources to support state and local government planning for more equitable and informed investments in electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. The Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Location Identification Toolkit (ILIT) includes interactive maps and an Excel-based modeling tool to help planners visualize existing EV fast charging stations and identify priority locations for additional EV charging infrastructure investments. Learn more about the capabilities of the Regional EV Charging ILIT in this video tutorial. 

A screenshot of the ILIT Data Viewer, displaying a map of the covered region of Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast states from Maine to North Carolina, indicating existing public EV fast charging infrastructure in a given area.

Electric vehicles have enormous potential to reduce harmful air pollution and GHG emissions from transportation. To ensure EV charging stations are available to people in all communities, including the places most affected by pollution and underserved by the transportation system, policymakers need new and improved planning tools and information.

The Regional EV Charging ILIT was developed by Georgetown Climate Center and M.J. Bradley & Associates, an ERM Company, using a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based analysis to evaluate the existing EV fast charging network and identify potential priority locations for future EV infrastructure development. This regional analysis is focused on public direct current fast charging (DCFC) infrastructure in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast states from Maine to North Carolina. 

The Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Location Identification Toolkit allows the user to assess locations using key metrics important for DCFC infrastructure, including proximity to existing EV charging infrastructure, commercial activity, and demographic data. The tools are designed so a user may generate and visualize rankings of locations that reflect the relative suitability of those locations for infrastructure development based on regional, state, or localpriorities.The Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Analysis Toolkit includes demographic, economic, and environmental indicators to support equitable EV infrastructure planning and analysis.

The Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Location Identification Toolkit includes three analytical components:

• A screenshot of the ILIT Location Analysis Model, showing the analysis inputs and filters that allow a user of the ILIT to determine the geographic scope of the analysis, the metrics for analysis, and equity considerations to include.

  The ILIT Location Analysis Model is an Excel-based tool that allows users to evaluate and rank possible suitable locations for new EV fast charging stations given specific inputs.  This model allows users to customize the analysis based on differing priorities for new EV infrastructure (e.g., some users may want to focus on identifying “gaps” in the existing DCFC network, while others may prefer to identify locations with high traffic volume and commercial activity). The Location Analysis Model allows a user to adjust the weighting of different metrics and apply filters (e.g., to view results for a specific state, to limit the analysis to priority corridors, or to focus on locations that meet demographic criteria) and view updated census tract rankings. Users can access the Excel tool for free by registering on the MJB&A website.
• The ILIT Data Viewer is a mapping application using ArcGIS that allows a user to visualize the main data sources behind the ILIT Location Analysis Model and view region-specific DCFC location ranking outputs from preloaded weighting methodologies. The Data Viewer provides users a way to display the underlying characteristics of the region (e.g., traffic volume, existing DCFC stations, census tract information) and offers the ability to filter census tracts by metric data.  The Data Viewer comes preloaded with region-specific outputs of the Location Analysis Model for certain weighting methodologies.
• The ILIT Results Mapper is a mapping application using Tableau that enables users to replicate the ranking analysis of the ILIT Location Analysis Model and simultaneously view interactive results.  By extending the functionality and customizability of the ILIT Model to a web-based mapping tool, results are easier to visualize and formatted to inform discussions with policymakers and other stakeholders. 

The tools are publicly available and free to use. Register and access the Regional EV Charging ILIT on the M.J. Bradley & Associates website.

This video tutorial provides an overview of the ILIT to help users navigate the tool's capabilities.

Review the Regional EV Charging ILIT User Guide (PDF) for more detailed instructions for each component of the toolkit.

A screenshot of the ILIT Results Mapper, displaying a map of the covered region of Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast states from Maine to North Carolina, with census tracts shaded on a gradient from orange to blue, where orange indicates high suitability according to the filters and metric weightings applied. Analysis inputs are also displayed on the left of the image.  To the right of the map, the Ranked Tracts panel lists the census tracts in the region by suitability according to the filters and metric weightings applied.

About the Regional EV Charging ILIT

The Regional EV Charging ILIT was developed to inform discussions between policymakers, local communities, and other stakeholders in considering priority locations for EV fast charging infrastructure investments. To allow each user to conduct an analysis based on their own priorities, the ILIT is built with customizable metrics and filters.

To support equitable climate investments that prioritize communities overburdened by pollution and underserved by the transportation system, the Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Analysis Toolkit incorporates environmental justice data from the US EPA’s EJ SCREEN and other equity metrics. These features will allow users to overlay demographic, economic, and environmental indicators as they consider locations for potential EV charging infrastructure investment.

The Regional EV Charging Infrastructure Location Identification Toolkit is a comprehensive update to an earlier tool first released in 2018. The new toolkit’s upgraded map allows for a statewide analysis of EV fast charging infrastructure, adding state-wide coverage to the highway corridor analysis capabilities of the earlier versions of the tool.  Since new charging stations are being installed regularly, the location data for existing EV fast charging stations is updated on a quarterly basis.

The Regional EV Charging ILIT was developed by Georgetown Climate Center and M.J. Bradley & Associates in collaboration with Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast states that participate in the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI). The Transportation & Climate Initiative is a regional collaboration that seeks to improve transportation, develop the clean energy economy and reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector.

Georgetown Climate Center and M.J. Bradley & Associates would like to thank The John Merck Fund for the support that helped make this work possible, and are grateful for the support of all of our funders.