EV-Charging Station Network Management Platform “Zaria24”

The Short description of the platform functionality

The Platform supports the business of Operators, having EV-charging station networks. It implements a wide set of functions, necessary for drivers, on the one hand, and for Operator’ maintenance and support personnel, on the other hand.

EV drivers download the mobile application, register themselves as clients. After the successful registration the driver can search the platform operative databank for available, not-booked and not-busy charging stations, and if found he can make a reservations for fifteen minutes to be able to come to the charger. The driver can see the route, use the navigation capability to get to the charging station in time/ Otherwise the booking will be automatically ammended and the station will become available for booking by other drivers.

At the charging station the driver starts the charging process or reports a problem to the Call Center (CC) specialist. To book a charger and start charging the car the driver must have a positive balance on his account. So the platform also provides payment services to replenish the client’ account. The platform integrates external payment services through the Yandex Kassa API and allows to use different payment methods (like ApplePay, GooglePay, YandexMoney, credit Card, ibank payment, etc).

In case of trouble the client can get in contact with the call center specialists, and can ask for support. The CC specialist has the automatic access to the driver and charger history and status, account balance. CC is authorized to book any available station on behalf of the driver. I.e. if the driver’ car can’t reach the station close enough to start charging because of a hindrance, CC can get in contact with the “forgetful” driver and ask to remove the car or fine him. CC knows all charging sessions of the given charger. The driver can send Photos of the charger and the car to prove the case.

The Platform integrates the modern services of mobile network operators (like MTS Autosecretary24) to organize the Call Center. Such a solution allows Operators to minimize TCO expenses at the start phase of the business, adding resources as necessary, fir instance to help the CC staff at rush hours. The MTS service redirects drivers calls to the available specialist mobile and to the Platform. That allows the platform to display the Charger and Client profiles on the CC comp immediately after CC answered the call. The CC can see the driver’ information to minimize quantity of questions, charger statistics and previous clients requests to recognize clients problems, etc. The CC specialist can also follow a predefined scenario and can perform the necessary function, using GUI interface of the CC browser.

Another block of functionality is a field service workflow management (FSM). The platform keeps the charger profile, all complaints, all repair, etc. FSM engineers can see all requests and accept any of it competitively. In case of fail to repair they return the ticket to the queue and FSM dispatcher assigns the engineer to repair the hardware.

The Platform keeps the driver profile, which is accessible for him from his private workspace. He can specify the car model, connector types. The platform keeps the charging statistics, consumed energy, applied tariffs and much more.

BSS part of the platform implements billing services for the Operator based on OSS information and tariffs, set by operator for the particular groups of their infrastructure.
BSS can also integrate with the Operator’ ERP system.

Both OSS and BSS parts provide statistics and reports to analyze the business efficiency and help Operator to make the business profitable, experimenting with Tariffs and Charger type quantity. Tariffs can differ by the charger model, charging speed, by region, time, etc. .

The platform includes the third line of support by integration with Redmine server, that allows to control problems fixing by the platform developers.

To keep the data consistency and ability to restore operations and balances the platform keeps logs of all client’ requests and all performed functions.

Short description of the technologies

The platform assumes the integration of different models of EV charging stations, supporting the OCPP 1.5+ protocol. The platform includes the adapter for integration with obsolete chargers, having RFID support onboard. Drivers with RFID card can book any type of chargers the same way via the mobile application. All parts of the platform recently have been tested on Schneider equipment.

The platform implements the scalable micro service architecture. It was designed to be run in a private data processing center (DPC) and in a public cloud like MS Azure. IPhone and Android application are available through the AppleStore and GooglePlay. For CC specialists it is advised to use any browser. Field engineers can use mobiles, notebooks and iPads.