Results

Based on this analysis, the top 10 parks in the Kootenay-Okanagan region that would be optimal for new EV charging stations are as follows:

And they have been identified in the following map:

Discussion

Limitations & error

As previously discussed, there were several factors that could not be considered for this project, as they were outside the scope or the data was unavailable. This may therefore have limited the accuracy of these results. The missing data about revenue and usage for some parks from the BC Parks report may have also contributed to some error.

And finally, as with any MCE and AHP analysis, choosing different factors or having different weights may change the final results fairly significantly. A sensitivity analysis was done to examine the influence of different weights for each factor, and it was determined that the results would not change very dramatically with slight changes to the weights.

Conclusions

The results of this analysis show that even though there are several existing charging stations nearby the 10 priority parks, their popularity overweighs this factor. In the weighing of the factors, the “park usage” was determined to be significantly more important over the other factors, since it is likely that the more popular a park is, the greater the demand for EV charging stations.

Half of the top 10 priority parks are located near Okanagan Lake, which is known to be very popular for camping and recreation. Though they were not considered in this project, the nearby large urban areas such as Kelowna and Vernon would also contribute to the demand for more public EV charging stations in this area.

In conclusion, if the Government of BC would like to encourage more widespread adoption of EVs, they must also make sure that drivers feel comfortable knowing that there is sufficient public infrastructure to support their travels. In the case of longer camping trips, development of new EV charging stations in National and BC Parks would be beneficial. Further research is required to incorporate the other potentially important factors, however this project has provided a good preliminary indication of which parks may be the highest priority for new EV charging stations.