Tab Content: Overview
Charge My Street (CMS) is a community benefit society which installs and operates community Electric Vehicle (EV) charge points by raising money through community shares. CMS has over 100 charge points in operation, with around 40 awaiting installation. Many new sites are suggested by community members themselves, and it’s a large undertaking for CMS to undertake site visits and assessments to check the validity of these suggestions. This often involves multiple site visits, conversations with village halls, parish councillors, small business owners and other stakeholders, to explain what is involved. Many sites ultimately prove to be unsuitable for technical, commercial or management reasons. The current site selection process is labour intensive, and a number of sites drop out in the later stages of development as they re-evaluate their commitment.
This Masters by Research project will identify recurrent issues and challenges using data CMS has accumulated over many years, to streamline and optimise this business decision process. This will lead to a higher success rate in identifying and installing new electric vehicle charge point sites and, ultimately, will help to reduce the time spent reviewing sites which are not worthwhile progressing.
This project will involve a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods to analyse CMS data and provide a decision making tool. Qualitative research will involve conducting interviews and reviewing case studies of successful and unsuccessful site proposals. Support will be given to undertake quantitative analysis using a large data set held by CMS and using tools already developed.
Specifically, this project will develop a decision tree to support the site selection process and take this into a scoring system or algorithm which would reduce time spent on developing low quality charge point sites. The candidate will develop appropriate questions at each stage to help filter unsuitable sites and will draw on valuation theory to understand how decisions are made in the process by potential customers.
The ideal candidate should have an undergraduate degree in business or a related subject with relevant cross overs, such as sociology, and be interested in electric vehicles and charge points. Candidates should enjoy working with people, have good enquiry skills and be comfortable speaking with stakeholders. You should also be confident in handling quantitative data. The selected candidate will be given support in both areas from expert academics in each field, alongside members of Charge My Street.
Deadline for applications: Midnight Tuesday 21st June 2022
Start date: July 2022
Project ref LCEI-130
Tab Content: Eligibility
Before applying for this opportunity please download and read the Graduate Researcher Application Criteria
Non-UK/home candidates: For information on home/international fee eligibility please see the university fee status webpage. From 1st January 2021, EU students are required to have a visa to enter into the UK as well as other international categories. Please check these details to see if you would need to apply for a visa and indicate this on your criteria document.
Tab Content: Enterprise & academic partners
This project will be supervised by:
- Professor Katy Mason, Professor of Markets, Marketing and Management
- Dr Burak Boyaci, Senior Lecturer in Management Science
- Dr Luke Rhodes-Leader, Lecturer in Management Science
- Daniel Heery, Director of Charge My Street
- Tom Barker, Marketing Lead at Charge My Street
Charge My Street (CMS) is a community benefit society which installs and operates community Electric Vehicle (EV) charge points by raising money through community shares. CMS has over 100 charge points in operation, with around 40 awaiting installation.
This project is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and is subject to funding confirmation.
