The Provision of a National Chargepoint Registry (NCR) for OLEV

1.1 The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) seeks a service provider to manage the National Chargepoint Registry (NCR). 1.2 The NCR is a database of publicly-available chargepoints for electric vehicles in the UK established in 2011. The database is freely open for those who wish to use the database, either by individual data users (e.g. electric vehicle drivers) or by business data users for their products (e.g. mapping smartphone apps, satellite navigation and route planning). 1.3 OLEV's policy objective is for the NCR to help support the take-up of electric vehicles by overcoming fears of a lack of chargepoint infrastructure by demonstrating the presence of chargepoints across the UK. 1.4 The NCR is comprised of two components: (a) The database (where all the chargepoint information is held) [https://data.gov.uk/dataset/national-charge-point-registry]; and (b) A website [http://national-charge-point-registry.uk/] (including a map interface) that accesses the database. 1.5 It was a requirement for chargepoints funded through a number of OLEV grant schemes (as a grant condition) that the chargepoint host or chargepoint network operator had to add their chargepoints to the NCR. The degree of participation in providing data for the NCR has been markedly lower for chargepoints not funded through OLEV by the chargepoint host or chargepoint network operator. It is a challenge to ensure that the data in the NCR is accurate and complete as far as possible to be of greatest use to data users. 1.6 The current contract to manage the NCR is due to end on 30th April 2017 and OLEV is seeking to appoint a service provider or providers to manage the NCR from 1st May 2017.