1. Address Specific Mobility Needs

A. Community Mobility Needs Assessment

Conducting a community needs assessment is a critical first step to ensure a particular project, service, or investment makes practical sense and benefits the target community. Typically, these assessments require input from members of the target community regarding the particular need of interest.

For example, a community mobility needs assessment might seek input from community members about their daily travel needs and what forms of transportation they generally use. This input can be collected through focus-groups, listening sessions, surveys, or interviews with community-based organizations and/or other relevant community leaders and stakeholders.^[1] Needs assessment also look at relevant demographics and research.

Equity Guide:

• EV ownership is not practical for every underserved community because mobility needs of communities vary. Poor rural communities, for instance, rely more on vehicle ownership or informal ride-sharing because of bad public transportation services and access.^[2] Poor urban communities in densely populated cities like New York or San Francisco, on the other hand, may have less of a need to own a car to get to work or complete daily tasks.
• Develop a system that identifies barriers experienced by different communities to help inform the EV project.^[3]
• A first step for EV projects in underserved communities should be to work with grassroots organizations in the local community to help with gathering relevant information in a culturally appropriate way (e.g. literacy level, language access, cultural issues/attitudes). For example, community mobility needs assessments should be conducted when siting charging infrastructure (see below) and carsharing services (see below) in underserved communities.

Tips for Success:

EV technology differences

Keep in mind EV technology differences when assessing the mobility needs of an underserved community. For example, a limited range EV like a Nissan Leaf (~80-mile range) might not be the best EV for a low-income driver who lives in the suburbs and has to drive long distances regularly to get to work or run errands. That driver would benefit more from a plug-in hybrid EV like a Chevy Volt, which has about a 40-mile electric range but switches over to gas to keep going when its electric miles run out.

Leverage existing community needs assessments

For example, nonprofit hospitals have to conduct periodic community health needs assessments to evaluate the benefits they provide to the community.^[4] Leveraging the time and effort to conduct those assessments and coordinating with nonprofit hospitals on their information gathering can reduce administrative costs and greatly increase the benefit to underserved communities.

>Helpful Links & Examples:

Here is some more info on assessing community needs:

• Community Tool Box (Work Group for Community Health and Development, University of Kansas)
  • Developing a Plan for Assessing Local Needs and Resources
  • Understanding and Describing the Community
  • Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys
  • Conducting Focus Groups
  • Conducting Public Forums and Listening Sessions
• EVs For Equity: Needs Assessment of Electric Mobility Opportunities for Communities of Concern in San Francisco (copy with authors) (City Hall Fellows, SF Department of Environment)
• The Central Valley Was Ride-Sharing Long Before Uber (July 2014) (Valley LEAP, Rey León)
• Community Health Needs Assessment Toolkit (Rural Health Works)

B. Shared-use Mobility

Shared mobility services have taken off as a complement to public transit and an alternate to private car ownership. Shared-use mobility includes transportation services that are shared among multiple users, including the following:

• traditional public transit;
• taxis and limos;
• bikesharing and scooter sharing;
• carsharing (e.g. round-trip (like Zipcar), one-way (like car2go), and personal vehicle sharing (like Getaround));
• ridesharing (e.g. car-pooling, van-pooling);
• ride-sourcing (e.g. Lyft and Uber);
• shuttle services;
• neighborhood jitneys; and
• commercial delivery vehicles providing flexible goods movement

These services offer an opportunity to:^[5]

• Provide more mobility choices
• Address last mile and first mile solutions
• Reduce traffic congestion
• Mitigate various forms of pollution
• Reduce transportation costs
• Reduce fossil fuel consumption
• Reduce pressures on parking spaces
• Improve efficiency
• Identify choices for those who cannot afford to buy and maintain a vehicle

Low-income individuals often face longer and more costly travel times because they disproportionately rely on public transportation that is often unreliable and infrequent. Shared mobility strategies have potential to bring benefits to underserved communities like more travel choices and reduced car ownership costs. But a number of structural and financial barriers have prevented low-income communities from fully accessing shared mobility services.^[6] As a result, current usage of these services remains lower in low-income communities than usage by the general population.^[7]

Equity Guide:

To make shared mobility benefits reach underserved communities, The Greenlining Institute finds that services must be relatable, accessible, and practical:

Relatable means low-income consumers comprehend shared mobility services. The following practices can help:

• Conduct targeted outreach and education (available in key languages)
• Partner with community-based organizations to assess the target community’s mobility needs and design and implement the shared mobility services (e.g. LA carsharing pilot)
• Use community specific ethnic media channels to share information (e.g. Spanish language radio, Chinese language newspapers, etc.)
• Hire from within the community when recruiting sales staff for storefront locations, support staff for customer support hotlines, etc.

Accessible means low-income consumers can afford, sign-up, and know how to use the shared mobility service. The following practices can help:

• Provide subsidized, affordable rates
• Provide diverse payment options (e.g. cash, transit cards, Electric Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards)
• Provide in-person trainings/orientations to teach customers how to use the shared mobility service
• Provide tailored customer service, including multilingual customer service and support

Practical means the shared mobility services are useful and convenient to low-income consumers. The following practices can help:

• Ensure the services address specific community mobility needs
• Locate any necessary infrastructure or storefront locations in safe, frequently used areas

Tips for Success:

Below are key findings and recommendations from Living Cities research to ensure shared mobility services are equitable and benefit underserved communities:

Findings

• Different shared mobility types address different trip needs
• Shared mobility is best used as a complement to local mass transit
• There is no silver bullet for solving the transportation needs of low-income communities through shared mobility
• Core strategies for improving access to shared mobility are similar across shared mobility system types
• The market for shared mobility transportation is nascent and developing
• The government has multiple levers of influence and can play multiple roles in bringing shared mobility services to low-income communities
• Intermediaries have the opportunity to connect users to new opportunities within the shared mobility space

Recommendations

• Launch pilot projects based on research into the actual transportation needs faced by low-income communities
• Research shared mobility business models, especially those with cross-sector partnerships, to understand how best to reach low-income communities
• Incorporate shared mobility into long-term transportation planning
  • Cultivate ride-share programs to guide growth of local mass transit
  • Use ride-share to connect low-income communities to jobs
  • Explore options for public transit and shared mobility system integration
• Focus on comprehensive, collaborative approaches to barrier reduction
• Cultivate intermediaries to increase demand for services by addressing barriers

California Examples:

The Charge Ahead California Initiative (SB 1275, De León), directed the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to create low-income electric carsharing pilot projects in disadvantaged communities. This pilot program is designed to increase the visibility and use of EVs as well as improve mobility, economic opportunity, and air quality in the neighborhoods most impacted by pollution and poverty. To date, CARB has implemented multiple carshare programs, as well as funded additional clean mobility programs (Clean Mobility Options, Clean Mobility in Schools and Sustainable Transportation Equity Project). To learn more about the various clean mobility programs, click here.

Helpful Links & Examples:

Examples

• Carsharing Pilot Project administrator solicitation (California Air Resources Board)
• Carsharing Pilot Project administrator application (California Air Resources Board)
• Sample grant agreement for administrator (California Air Resources Board)
• Request for Information (RFI) Innovative Electric Mobility Services (California Energy Commission)

Helpful links with more research, tools, and case studies on shared mobility

• Shared-Use Mobility Center Tools and Research
• Electric Carsharing in Underserved Communities: Considerations for Program Success (January 2015) (The Greenlining Institute)
• Can Shared Mobility Help Low-Income People Access Opportunity? (December 2014) (Living Cities): This report explores the specific opportunities and challenges facing shared mobility programs in expanding services to low-income communities.
• Case Studies: Can Shared Mobility Help Low-Income People Access Opportunity? (December 2014) (Living Cities): This resource offers nine case studies of bike-share, car-share and ride-share programs, including accounts of how they’ve attempted to better serve and reach low-income communities

2. Making EVs Accessible

A. Technical Assistance

Technical assistance can take various forms, but typically has the end goal of helping individuals or entities navigate complicated or resource intensive applications to receive public benefits. For example, in California, local agencies or non-profits applying for state grants for greenhouse gas reduction projects can receive technical assistance in the form of grant writing support or greenhouse gas reduction quantifications that a grant application may require.

Equity Guide:

Programs targeting low-income individuals should always require efficient, multilingual technical assistance to increase participation rates. Publicly-funded consumer-facing programs and incentives can be cumbersome and inefficient, resulting in low participation rates. This is especially true when low-income programs are not well-coordinated or complementary, resulting in different applications with varying definitions, requirements, and criteria. This inconsistency and bureaucracy creates a barrier to accessing public benefits.

For example, the “Replace Your Ride” (RYR) scrap and replace program, incentivizing clean vehicle purchases in southern California, uses a case-management model. RYR assigns a dedicated staff person to help applicants who are having difficulty in filling out paperwork to get vouchers for EVs. This case-management model is particularly important when targeting immigrant communities who may have language barriers and lack the language proficiency or technical knowledge to complete necessary forms.

Tips for Success:

A Universal Application Can Streamline Process

Creating a “universal application” can greatly increase access to low-income programs. Ideally, a program administrator or consumer would use this simple, user-friendly (e.g. app-based or online-based) universal application to determine an individual’s eligibility in real-time, across a number of programs, in order to maximize benefits to low-income households. For example, California has a number of low-income programs for solar, energy efficiency, and EV incentives. A universal application would streamline the eligibility and application process making it easy for low-income households to receive transformative benefits from multiple programs.

B. Charging Infrastructure

Convenient access to charging is essential to owning an EV. Charging can be done at home, by plugging into your basic electrical outlet, called level 1 charging (120 volts). Individuals can also upgrade their home charging to level 2 charging (240 volts, like what electric clothes dryers need), which charges faster. Some workplaces provide level 1 and level 2 charging as an employee perk. Public charging can be level 1 and level 2 but can also be level 3 (Direct Current (DC) fast charging). Typically, level 3 charging takes at most 20 minutes to fully charge your EV, depending on the battery size of the EV and how much charge was left when you began. This type of charging is most akin to filling up a gas tank and can also be the most costly.

Access to home charging is a “virtual necessity” to the acceleration of the EV market.^[8] Consumers are very unlikely to buy EVs if they cannot charge at home.^[9] In order to ensure underserved communities have real access to EVs, ensuring they have access to home charging is critical.

Equity Guide:

Charging infrastructure investments, particularly those that are publicly funded and funded through utility customer dollars, should target and prioritize underserved communities. This means charging infrastructure investments should have minimum deployment commitments in underserved communities to ensure they can access EV technology and ensure they are not left behind.

For example, two investor-owned utility charging infrastructure pilots in California were approved with 10 percent minimum deployment commitments in disadvantaged communities.^[10] Another pilot proposal in California calls for a 15 percent minimum commitment in disadvantaged communities with a goal of hitting 20 percent.^[11]

Tips for Success:

Underserved communities disproportionately live in multi-unit dwellings
Increasing access to home charging for underserved communities means increased deployment of charging infrastructure in multi-unit dwellings (MuDs). EV stakeholders identify MuDs as a “tough nut to crack” given layers of complexity involving landlord/site host approval, the need for easements or licenses, the possible need for costly electrical upgrades and wire trenching, among other issues.

See below for more info, resources, and guides on installing charging stations in MuDs.

Incentivize charging that benefits the electricity grid
Charging EVs during off-peak hours (when the electric grid is underutilized) can lower average electricity cost for utility customers. Off-peak charging allows utilities to bring in new revenue and avoids the need for new capital investments.

Charging EVs during times of the day where there is excess renewable energy (like wind and solar) can help stabilize the electricity grid and avoid the need to squander clean energy or invest in stand-alone energy storage to hold the excess power.^[12]

Offering lower rates for charging during times when the grid is underutilized and excess renewable power is available maximizes fuel cost savings by making charging cheaper than pumping gasoline.^[13]

Helpful Links & Examples:

Examples

• Utility settlement documents for EV charging station deployment pilots in California
  • Pacific Gas and Electric
  • Southern California Edison
  • San Diego Gas and Electric

Helpful links

• Driving Out Pollution: How Utilities Can Accelerate the Market for Electric Vehicles (June 2012) (Natural Resources Defense Council)
• Charging Infrastructure at Multi-unit Dwellings (MuDs) (Plug-in Electric Vehicle Collaborative) (PEVC): Guidelines, case studies, decision guides, survey tools, webinars, outreach tools, and other resources
• Workplace Charging (PEVC): Guidelines, case studies, best practices, webinars, outreach tools, and other resources

Other Resources

What type of charging do I need for my EV?

• Plug-In America (types of electric vehicle service equipment)
• Plug-In & Get Ready (Center for Sustainable Energy)
• The EV Project
• The California Air Resources Board’s Clean Vehicle website: Information, incentives, vehicle info, etc.
• PEV Collaborative (PEVC) Resources: Information on EVs, includes rebates, incentives, information, etc.

What is the process to install charging infrastructure?

• Center for Sustainable Energy
• Pacific Gas & Electric
• Southern California Edison

Where are EV charging stations located?

• Fuels Center Fuel Station Locator and Route Planning (U.S. Department of Energy)
• PlugShare: Interactive Charging Maps for US and Canada, Trip Planner, Mobile version available