Transport equity considerations in electric vehicle charging research: a scoping review

Abstract

Many communities have been marginalised in the ongoing policy and planning debates surrounding transportation electrification, even though well allocated charging infrastructure is essential for the environmental and societal benefits of Electric Vehicles (EVs) to be realised. This scoping review aims to synthesise the current state of knowledge and gaps surrounding transportation equity in EV charging research. Following PRISMA-Scr protocols, a literature search is conducted to locate articles that explicitly or implicitly discuss EV charging equity. Our review finds that research on charging equity is nascent and lacking in clear normative evaluations of equity compared to the wider body of transportation equity literature. Only slightly more than one-in-four of an identified 37 articles discuss equity and justice explicitly. Equity perspectives in charging research are dominated by North American and European perspectives, with limited perspectives from the rest of the world. Charging incentivisation schemes and planning efforts may not be equity focused and may favour wealthier individuals, and there are differences in the charging needs and desires of high adoption groups compared to low adoption groups. These findings, however, often come from geographically and philosophically limited contexts and there are gaps in the literature for new methodological and topical contributions to this area.