Filling up on sunshine

The Gridserve Electric Forecourt in Braintree

Gridserve plans to create a network of facilities that promote electric motoring

Owners of electric vehicles embarking on long journeys often experience a feeling called “range anxiety”, a sense of disquiet stemming from the uncertainty that they will find a place to recharge their car along the route. Besides the challenge of locating publically available charging points at service areas, in car parks or at the kerbside, EV owners are currently confronted with an array of chargepoint types which top-up their car batteries at a different speeds, may require connecting using a variety of cable designs and often require the driver to sign up as a network member in order to activate the service.

But what if re-charging an electric car was as straightforward as topping up a petrol or diesel powered vehicle? Imagine a forecourt where EV owners can pull up, plug-in and re-charge rapidly without fuss, and where they can buy a cup of coffee or play with the kids while they wait. This is the vision that has driven Toddington Harper, who says his mission is to provide people with the confidence that the UK will have the charging infrastructure required for mass EV adoption well ahead of the 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars. This mission has seen Harper’s company Gridserve open what is being billed as the UK’s first forecourt dedicated to EVs. The first Electric Forecourt opened at Braintree in Essex on 7 December. The facility can charge a total of 36 electric vehicles simultaneously. The forecourt features a range of chargers that can deliver up to 350kW of charging power, including six Tesla superchargers. Current battery technology means that 350kW chargers can add 200 miles of range with 20 minutes’ charging.

Toddington Harper, the founder and chief executive of Gridserve, said he wants to make EV driving a stress-free experience that delivers EV driving at a cost lower than driving petrol or diesel vehicles. Braintree is just the first in what is envisaged to be a national network. Gridserve has a £1bn programme that will see the opening of 100 Electric Forecourts across the UK over the next five years. Harper says: “The first Electric Forecourt represents a major milestone in achieving Gridserve’s purpose to deliver sustainable energy and move the needle on climate change. It’s our collective responsibility to prevent greenhouse gas emissions rising further, and electric vehicles powered by clean energy represent a large part of the solution.

“However, charging has to be simple and free of anxiety, which is why we’ve designed our Electric Forecourts entirely around the needs of drivers, updating the traditional petrol station model for a Net Zero carbon world and delivering the confidence people need to make the switch to electric transport today – a full decade ahead of the 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars. Together with our charging-included electric vehicle leasing business, that we are also launching today in partnership with Hitachi Capital (UK) PLC, people now have the full confidence to make the transition to an electric vehicle, knowing that charging is in-hand, and it’s actually less expensive to use an electric car than a petrol or diesel alternative.”

The Braintree forecourt, located adjacent to Great Notley, just off the A131, has been jointly funded by Gridserve and Hitachi Capital (UK), with support from the UK government via Innovate UK and the Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles (the new name for the Office for Low Emission Vehicles). Transport minister Rachel Maclean marked the forecourt’s opening by saying: “As we accelerate towards cleaner and greener transport, I’m delighted to see the future of service stations being brought to life with the opening of the UK’s first all-electric forecourt. Government funding has helped make

The Electric Forecourt site just off the A131

this dream a reality and with £2.8bn of support to encourage the uptake of zero emission vehicles, there has never been a better time to make the switch.”

Solar-powered motoring

The Electric Forecourt is part of Gridserve’s wider ‘sun-towheel’ infrastructure, built to deliver low cost, net zero carbon energy to every vehicle that uses one of the chargers. The electricity on offer is generated from both the solar power canopies above the chargers, and a network of hybrid solar farms, which are also operated by Gridserve.

The Braintree Electric Forecourt is paired with Gridserve’s solar farm at Clay Hill, which is located at Flitwick in Bedfordshire via the National Grid. Clay Hill, which Gridserve acquired in August, was the UK’s first solar farm to be built free from government subsidy. The site provides grid services and generates enough electricity to drive electric vehicles 40 million miles per year or generate enough energy for 2,500 homes while saving around 4,500 tonnes of carbon annually.

There is also a 6MWh battery on-site that helps to balance the local energy grid and shift energy to periods when it is more valuable. For example, on windy winter nights the battery can store enough energy to drive 24,000 miles in electric vehicles the following day, helping to maximise the value of renewable energy resources, stabilise the grid and keep prices low.

Drivers charging their vehicles at the Electric Forecourt will initially pay just 24p per kWh of energy (including VAT). This means a typical charge from 20% to 80% costs under £10 for an average-size electric vehicle on the market today. To deliver additional flexibility, Gridserve plans to introduce a tiered pricing structure in the future.

Ian Cameron, head of customer service and innovation at UK Power Networks said: “We see a future where venues like this can offer energy services to help balance the electricity network, creating new income streams, getting more clean energy onto the network and ultimately lowering costs for customers. This is a unique project but it won’t be the last and we’re tremendously excited to help make it a reality.”

To further reduce the environmental impact of EVs, Gridserve has partnered with a tree planting organisation that will plant 100 trees for every electric vehicle leased through the service. The aim is to minimise the carbon emissions from supply chain processes, such as manufacturing.

Re-charging drivers

While vehicles charge, drivers will be able relax and shop in a dedicated building that includes retail space operated by WHSmith, Costa Coffee, Booths, the Post Office and Gourmade. The facility also has a waiting lounge, free superfast Wi-Fi, washrooms, a dedicated kid’s play area, a wellbeing area with exercise bikes that generate electricity, and business meeting rooms.

Toby Keir, managing director at WHSmith, says: “At WHSmith, we have been serving customers on their journeys for over 200 years and we understand how important convenience is to people on the go. We’re therefore delighted to be partnering with Gridserve’s Electric Forecourt to deliver a new first-class customer experience, with fantastic service and a tailored retail offer including WHSmith, Post Office, Costa Coffee and Booths. It’s a great concept and we look forward to playing our part over the next hundred years with the future of electric cars.”

Neil Lake, managing director of Costa Coffee, UK&I, adds: “As a growing business, we continue to open new stores, with a strong presence in forecourts, providing customers with a welldeserved break and the familiarity of their favourite Costa coffee. Like Gridserve, we are committed to building a more sustainable future and have already installed EV charging at many of our stores, with plans to roll out more throughout 2021, helping to support those customers who are opting to switch to electric vehicles.”

Making conversions

Besides being a facility for existing EV owners, the Electric Forecourt aims to help people make the switch from fossil fuel to electric-powered vehicles. The upper floor of the building showcases the latest electric vehicles while digital video screens help people learn about electric motoring.

The Braintree Electric Forecourt features: 12 DC Chargers –up to 350kW 12 DC Chargers – up to 90kW 6 AC Chargers – up to 22kW 6 Tesla Superchargers

With more than 200 types of electric vehicles now available, Gridserve is hiring electric vehicle enthusiasts to help educate people about electric vehicles, and arrange test drives. To help drivers acquire the best EV for them, Gridserve has also launched a leasing company, again in partnership with Hitachi Capital (UK), who plan to offer EVs from major vehicle manufacturers. At the time of launch, available brands include Audi, BMW, DS, Mercedes-Benz, MG, Mini, Nissan, Renault and Volkswagen.

Robert Gordon, chief executive of Hitachi Capital (UK), says: “Our partnership with Gridserve is a total game-changer for electric mobility. Not only are we providing electric vehicles at some of the most competitive rates on the market, but we are at the same time developing a network of rapid, reliable and renewably powered Electric Forecourts that will fast-track the electric vehicle revolution in the UK as we prepare for a zerocarbon future.”

Toddington Harper says the Gridserve Electric Vehicle Solutions service is designed to bring the cost of driving electric well

Toddington Harper has a very apt name. His late father, Brian Harper, used to build petrol stations, and named his two sons after motorway service areas. Toddington was named after a MSA on the M1 and his older brother Heston after one on the M4. We’ve designed our Electric Forecourts entirely around the needs of drivers, updating the traditional petrol station model for a Net Zero carbon world Toddington Harper

below that of petrol or diesel cars, and minimise the environmental impact of EVs.Net zero carbon energy is included in monthly leasing payments, meaning drivers can charge at Electric Forecourts without paying any additional costs. The company hopes that this will remove a key barrier to mass EV adoption, enabling people to accurately compare the cost of leasing a petrol or diesel vehicle, plus fuel, with an electric vehicle with fuel included. Gridserve said this reflects the true overall cost to the consumer, which in most cases clearly demonstrates a lower cost for EVs than petrol or diesel vehicles. Harper believes the benefit will be amplified for the 40% of UK drivers without access to off-street parking that would otherwise have to rely on less dependable and typically more expensive public charging infrastructure compared to charging at home. For those who lease through Gridserve, charging at an Electric Forecourt becomes cheaper than home charging because energy is already included in monthly leasing payments. Gridserve’s Toddington Harper concludes: “Together with our Solar Farms and Electric Forecourts, Gridserve Electric Vehicle Solutions completes our ‘sun-to-wheel’ infrastructure designed to deliver Net Zero carbon transport from 2020 onwards. By including the planting of 100 trees for every electric vehicle leased through the service and providing Net Zero carbon energy to charge all the vehicles, we’re making EV driving greener, cheaper and more straightforward than ever before.”

Weymouth as seen through Mapper

Dorset taps into digital maps

AppyWay enables county council to streamline processes and improve public engagement

Dorset’s traffic and highways already paying dividends for us as it will whenever and wherever needed, is providing team will be using a cloud- release more of our time to process TROs Dorset Council with business continuity based solution to manage through the system rather than chasing our during the pandemic. its Traffic Regulation Order tails a bit when requests come in.” Mike Potter said: “Moving away from the (TRO) management process. Dorset is using Traffic Order Suite to text-based orders and into map-based orders Dorset Council hopes using tackle a wide range of TRO issues. The will help make things much more straightthe AppyWay Traffic Order Suite will enable county, famous for sandy beaches and the forward. Through AppyWay’s map-based, it to: achieve significant time savings when Jurassic Coast, is made up of a mix of larger cloud-hosted suite we will more easily be creating and amending TROs; improve col- towns, such as Weymouth, and small villages able to amend or change those orders to laboration with internal and external part- and parishes that experience huge influxes make improvements to the schemes.” ners; and run an improved and streamlined of tourists during the summer months. Dan Hubert, founder and chief executive public consultation process. Through the suite’s Streets function Dorset of AppyWay, said: “We’re thrilled to have

The Traffic Order Suite comprises: Mapper, Council has improved collaboration with Dorset Council as our first Mapper customer for the management of static and moving external partners such as Dorset Police. in the South West. It clearly demonstrates orders; Engagement, a portal for collecting Historically, enforcement and FoI requests Dorset’s forward-thinking approach to an and analysing residents feedback; and Streets, have taken a considerable amount of time often lengthy and outdated process. the platform to visualise complex traffic to process and deliver. Streets provides “England’s kerbside faces some unique order data; and an Integrations tool. enforcement teams and the police with a challenges, most notably the government’s

The move to a map-based solution comes self-service system, reducing the time the push for more active travel via its Gear at a pivotal time for Dorset as the council TRO team spends processing requests. Change initiative. Dorset will be balancing looks to collaborate more effectively with The Engagement portal can be accessed these needs with those of its rural commutraffic teams across the county whilst tran- by the public via a link on the authority’s nities, who will continue to need kerbside sitioning to remote working as a result of website. This enables Dorset to capture and access for cars. Via Mapper, we’re making the COVID-19 pandemic. categorise feedback via the Engagement it easier for local authorities like Dorset to

Mike Potter, road safety team leader for Dashboard. The cloud-hosted platform does make changes to the kerb so they can Dorset Council, said: “One of the main ben- not require additional sign-in processes, or support green policy objectives and collabefits of the suite is the flexibility and ease of VPN (virtual private network) access. orate across their county to drive change restriction creation that the solution provides. Mapper, which is designed to be accessed more broadly.” The ability to process more than one at a time will free up our time to do more in The Traffic Order Suite’s tools terms of processing TROs. “Our previous legacy system was cum- The AppyWay Traffic Order Suite comprises of four tools: bersome to use and simple Freedom of • Mapper: Mapper can be used to manage both static and moving Traffic Regulation Orders Information (FoI) or data requests would • Engagement: Through Engagement, councils can consult with residents on an interactive platform often consume a significant amount of our • Streets: Streets is a real-time local authority-wide map of active on-street restrictions time. The AppyWay Traffic Order Suite is • Integrations: This tool allows councils to share TRO data with partners and third parties.

West London council pilots CCTV moving traffic enforcement

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has deployed its first CCTV enforcement cameras following a pilot scheme. The west London council has installed ANPR cameras at five locations to enforce a range of moving traffic offences including: ‘No entry’ pedestrian zones; box junctions; banned turns; and one-way streets.

The Videalert hosted digital video platform was procured as part of an ongoing contract with NSL, which is a sister company within the Marston Holdings portfolio of companies.

Caroline Dubarbier, sustainable travel manager at the Royal Borough, said: “We took the decision to install cameras to enforce moving traffic contraventions in response to complaints from residents in order to increase compliance with

Camera view of Hans Road

road traffic regulations, reduce congestion and improve road safety. We have been pleased with Videalert’s responsive service and the cameras are already reducing complaints from residents regarding traffic offences as well as making our roads safer.”

Videalert has installed seven digital cameras at five locations including Hans Road, Portland Road, Hollywood Road, Old Brompton Road and Acklam Bridge.

The cameras capture highdefinition images to minimise discard-rates, increase productivity and help reduce the number of appeals. They combine ANPR with video analytics to capture only the vehicles committing an offence and Videalert’s hosted platform allows the council to maintain a ‘whitelist’ of exempt vehicles including buses, taxis and emergency vehicles.

Captured evidence packs are stored on Videalert’s hosted digital video platform where they can be accessed and reviewed over the internet. Validated evidence packs are sent to the council’s back office system to issue penalty charge notices (PCNs).

RingGo marketing in Winchester

Winchester switches to RingGo

Winchester City Council has payments at pay & display car switched its cashless parking parks made consistent with service to RingGo following a that at the city’s park & ride. competitive tender process. Winchester City Council has

The service had previously worked with RingGo at its park been provided by PayByPhone. & ride sites since 2013.

As part of the transfer of The council has a strong service, Winchester City focus on encouraging greater Council is removing the use of digital services and “convenience fee” previously plans to reduce its reliance on levied for paying for parking by parking machines. phone, bringing the service in As part of the launch, line with machine payments. RingGo rebranded 87 parking The reason for dropping the machines and placed 100 signs surcharge is to encourage across the city to help residents greater take-up of phone understand how to use the parking across the city. service and recognise the

The deal sees cashless benefits it provides.

Airport pilots pre-booked parking

A ‘touchless’ valet parking system is being piloted at Doncaster Sheffield Airport in South Yorkshire. The airport is trialling the Contact Free Valet Parking system, which has been developed by Park IT.

Contact Free Parking is designed to allow customers to complete an intuitive, operator-branded check-in process from either their home or on a mobile phone.

On arrival at the airport, customers are directed to a reception area where they deposit keys. Using a unique QR code, customers gain access to the valet reception and secure key storage. There is no interaction with staff, no queuing and customers are moved quickly to the terminal. A set of return key collection lockers deliver the final stage of the contactless valet experience.

Paul Gibbons, parking services manager at Doncaster Sheffield Airport added: “All airport valet providers will be looking for support in handling and emerging from this global situation. Doncaster Sheffield Airport is hugely important to the local area and getting our customers safely on holiday. ParkIT’s Contact Free Valet Parking solution will help us to provide our loyal customers with the confidence they’re looking for to travel again as it perfectly complements the extensive measures we are taking to ensure clean, safe travel.”

The Doncaster Sheffield Airport trial has been awarded a grant from the Innovate UK Sustainable Innovation Fund.

Innovate UK executive chair Dr Ian Campbell said: “In these difficult times we have seen the best of British business innovation. The pandemic is not just a health emergency but one that impacts society and the economy. ParkIT, along with every initiative Innovate UK has supported through this fund, is an important step forward in driving sustainable economic development. Each one is also helping to realise the ambitions of hard-working people.”

ParkIT said that the Innovate UK funding was critical to setting up the Doncaster Sheffield Airport valet parking project.

Joël Phillips, vice president of product at ParkIT said: “ParkIT is focussed on delivering passengercentric experiences and meeting the changing demands of the travel industry. This award allows us to quickly meet the challenges created by the current situation, quickly build passenger confidence in airport and valet providers, and get people back to enjoying travel.”

Greater Anglia increases capacity at Broxbourne station

A £1m scheme to increase car parking at Broxbourne railway station has been completed.

Greater Anglia has created more than 270 additional car parking spaces at Broxbourne railway station, increasing capacity by more than 50%.

The car park has been built on land formerly used by Balfour Beatty. Work started in July.

The land has been resurfaced and parking spaces have been lined. The car park also has new LED lighting and CCTV systems installed.

The work is part of a programme to improve car parks including installing automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) at 20 car parks, adding an extra 1,782 spaces, fitting LED lights, improving CCTV and security and re-surfacing.

Simone Bailey, Greater Anglia asset management director, said: “Although we have seen a fall in passenger numbers due to the pandemic, Broxbourne is a

Broxbourne station

vital commuter station and we needed to expand the car park to make it fit for purpose for now and in the future.

“Before the pandemic, the car park had almost 500 spaces, but it was nearing capacity. We are very pleased that the car park extension is now complete, and we hope it will be well received by rail users when they return to the network.”

Accessible spaces have been created at the front of the station, while two electric vehicle charging points are located at the side of the station.

ANPR has already been introduced at the car park. The ticketless ANPR technology makes it easier for customers to pay for parking, as it increases the variety of payment options available, and helps to improve security.

Customers can pay for their parking online anytime up until midnight the day after their visit on the Great Anglia Parking Portal (gaparking.co.uk).

Blue Badge holders will continue to park for free, provided they register with car park operator NCP within 24 hours of leaving the car park. They can do this online, by phone or by post and register more than one car if required.

Network Rail revamps 14 sites

Network Rail has improved parking at 14 stations in partnership with South West Railway (SWR). Work has been completed on Worcester Park and Witley stations in Surrey, and Farnborough station in Hants.

There were upgrades at a further 11 stations across the SWR network including Sunningdale, Effingham Junction and Weybridge in Surrey, Botley, New Milton and Hinton Admiral stations in Hampshire, Honiton in Devon and Salisbury station in Wiltshire.

The works included resurfacing, repainting lines, marking out safe walking routes, removing trip hazards and improving drainage so rain water does not form puddles.

Andrew Magee, senior asset engineer at Network Rail Wessex, said: “The improvements will make travelling to and from the stations easier, safer and provide a better passenger experience.”

Farnborough station