Skip to main content

Scottish council plans free electric car charge points

Motorists in Aberdeenshire, Scotland will soon be able to charge their electric vehicles and use solar-powered parking machines in town centres across county. Twenty of the solar-powered parking meters will be fitted at a cost of £80,000 which allows motorists to pay by cash, debit or credit card or their mobile phone. The council heard that the current parking machines are prone to theft and often break down. It was suggested that the redundant power supply from the ageing parking units could then be used
December 6, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Motorists in Aberdeenshire, Scotland will soon be able to charge their electric vehicles and use solar-powered parking machines in town centres across county.

Twenty of the solar-powered parking meters will be fitted at a cost of £80,000 which allows motorists to pay by cash, debit or credit card or their mobile phone.

The council heard that the current parking machines are prone to theft and often break down. It was suggested that the redundant power supply from the ageing parking units could then be used for electric car charge points.

The charge points, which would be offered to motorists in Banchory, Banff, Crathie, Ellon, Fraserburgh, Huntly, Inverurie, Peterhead, Stonehaven and Turriff would be free to use.

Mark Skilling, Strategy Manager for infrastructure, said: "We have the opportunity here to use the power supplies for something else. It is fair to say that the uptake across Scotland for electric vehicles is lower and slower than people expected it to be.

"We are going through changes and would like to see at least one charge point in each of our busiest town centres."

Related Content

  • Kapsch: We need to move quicker towards connectivity
    July 27, 2023
    Connectivity requires a lot of different parties to work together – but it’s the only way to get coverage. Alfredo Escribá, chief technology officer of Kapsch, talks to Adam Hill about the value of ‘orchestrated corridors’
  • Advanced Driver Assistance Systems: a solution or another problem?
    November 27, 2013
    Do Advanced Driver Assistance Systems represent a positive step forward for safety, or something of a safety risk? Jason Barnes discusses the issue with leading industry figures. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are already common. Anti-lock brakes or electronic stability control are well understood and are either fitted as standard or frequently requested by new vehicle buyers. More advanced ADAS features are appearing on many top-end vehicles and the trickle-down has already started. Adaptive
  • Mobility pricing offers new tools for managing mobility
    November 23, 2017
    Mobility pricing is the best way of sustaining and enhancing mobility, argues Moving Forward Consulting’s Josef Czako. Mobility pricing (MP) is effectively the culmination of the ‘user pays’ principle and has been referred to in many policy discussions about electronic toll collection, road user charging (RUC), and pricing. MP not only reflects the ‘use more, pay more’ nature of RUC, it also takes account of the external cost of journeys including pollution, noise, the cost of congestion and accidents.
  • San Francisco to launch mobile fare payment pilot
    January 19, 2015
    The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which oversees all transportation in the city, including the Municipal Railway (Muni), today announced that it will pilot a new smartphone application (app) for purchasing and using transit fares across the Muni system. With the new app, riders will no longer be required to have exact change or rely on fare vending machines to ride. The pilot is expected to begin in the summer of 2015. The SFMTA will be partnering with GlobeSherpa, a leading prov