Monitoring and availability of EV chargers

Charging infrastructure is not judged by the number of chargers installed, but by their real availability. A charger visible on an app but out of order discourages the driver and harms the whole sector. Supervision, this remote monitoring of chargers, is what turns a fleet of equipment into a reliable service.

What supervision is

Supervision is a system that communicates continuously with the chargers to know their status, manage charging sessions, billing and access rights, and report incidents. It is the brain of the infrastructure: without it, a charger runs blind and its failure is only known when a user reports it, often too late.

The availability rate

A fleet's key indicator is its availability rate: the share of time the chargers are actually usable. Tracking it over time, charger by charger and site by site, reveals the problem equipment, measures service quality and grounds the dialogue with the maintainer. A rate that is slipping is the signal for action.

Roaming and visibility

Thanks to roaming, a driver can charge at chargers from different operators and find them on mapping apps. This visibility relies on the chargers' data, their location, power and availability, being accurate and up to date. False data sends the user to an unavailable charger, with all the frustration that brings.

Open data expected

• the location and characteristics of the charge points;
• the connector types and the power ratings available;
• the access and pricing terms;
• the availability status, ideally in real time.

Supervision does not replace knowing your fleet

Supervision handles real-time operation, but it does not replace an asset inventory: the age of the chargers, their maintenance history, their ownership, which site they belong to. The two are complementary: supervision for day-to-day operation, the inventory for long-term steering and renewal decisions.

Securing access and payment

A charger has to be usable simply: badge, app, direct payment. Access or payment failures are a frequent cause of perceived unavailability, even when the charger works technically. Tracking these incidents alongside hardware faults gives a faithful picture of the user's real experience, who does not distinguish the cause of a failed charge.

From data to the renewal decision

Supervision data and maintenance history, cross-referenced, inform asset decisions: which ageing chargers to replace, which to prioritise, where to increase power. A charger that piles up faults and outages ends up costing more than its replacement. Having these figures turns the renewal of a fleet into a reasoned decision rather than a reaction to wear.

System interoperability

A charger fleet often rests on several building blocks: chargers of different brands, a supervision system, a roaming platform. Their good communication determines how reliable the information passed to the user is. Keeping an independent, clean and exportable asset inventory makes these systems talk to each other and avoids depending entirely on one supplier to know your own fleet. The data stays under control, whatever the operating tool chosen.

Steering availability with KARTES

KARTES locates each charger on a map, with its condition, characteristics and the history of its interventions and outages. You track the availability of your fleet, spot the chargers that cause problems and have clean, exportable data to feed your systems and public maps. Day-to-day operation and asset steering finally run on the same data.

Key points

• A fleet's value lies in its real availability, not the number of chargers.
• Supervision reports charger status and incidents continuously.
• The availability rate measures service and frames the dialogue with the maintainer.
• Supervision and asset inventory are complementary, not substitutes.