Parking at railway stations

BTN’s railway expert Andrew Sharp was at last week’s Waterfront’s Rail Station Development and Regeneration Conference in London.

He reports that there was much discussion about electric vehicle (EV) charging points at railway station car parks. One of the early speakers had a rather idealised picture of a station of the future (loosely modelled on Oxford) that would have several EV charging points, some of them high-speed.

The debate heated up. Was this the right place for them? Do station operators want to set aside parking space for community use, rather than for commuter use? Because commuters and rail leisure passengers tend to be short-distance drivers and usually don’t need charging facilities – and when they do, slower cheaper charging points would be fine.
    
Buses connect at railway stations.  Do they need charging points?

Delegates seemed to think that the primary function of a station was the gateway to the rail network: community benefits were a secondary function, so chargers should be provided if there was space and a business case.  A Network Rail speaker pointed out they are moving to electric vehicles for their track maintenance staff, so slow chargers in station car parks would be useful for them!

https://waterfront.eventscase.com/EN/stations22/Programme

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