"In Betrieb" Is Not "Free". Live Connector Status Across Five European Countries.
Every European country now publishes where its public charge points are. That was the easy half, and the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation is the reason it happened: since April 2024 operators owe machine-readable data about publicly accessible recharging points, and the national access points duly carry it. So a planner asks “is there a charger at the depot turn-off?” and gets a…
The European Union requires operators of public electric vehicle charging stations to publish machine-readable data about where these charging points are located. This regulation, implemented since April 2024, enables planners to easily identify charging stations near their locations. However, a potential issue arises when the driver arrives at a charging station, as the status of the connectors may no longer reflect the information provided earlier.
For instance, Germany's registry contains 154,210 active charging records, but only 141,083 of them include a status field. Of these, 116,422 show the status "In Betrieb" (meaning the station is registered and commissioned), yet zero of these records include an availability field. Consequently, a fleet system relying solely on the "In Betrieb" status may present inaccurate information about the availability of charging connectors.
Only a few countries, such as Germany, Lithuania, and the Netherlands, provide live availability status for charging connectors, accounting for 5 out of the 36 countries covered. This means that only 29.4% of charging rows represent live data, highlighting a significant gap in coverage across Europe. The data also reveals various connector statuses, including available, full, unknown, and out of service.
The distinction between these statuses is crucial, as an out-of-service connector presents a different routing decision compared to a connector that is merely busy.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
