Tracking Electrical Vehicles

The Tracking Electrical Vehicles feature allows both administrators and users to officially designate specific vehicles as electric within the system. Its primary purpose is to provide the data necessary for managing access to dedicated charging stations, reporting on sustainability metrics, and applying EV-specific parking policies. This article is intended for OPS-COM administrators responsible for vehicle management and parking policy enforcement.

Setup and Configuration

The EV flag feature is universally enabled by default and does not require any special system configuration to activate. The functionality is immediately available on all vehicle information pages.

Admin Side: Administrators have the ability to manually apply or remove the EV designation for any user's vehicle directly from the administrative portal.

User Side: End-users can self-manage their profiles and flag their own vehicles as electric through the public-facing online portal.

Using this Feature

Administrators can use the following instructions to manually flag a vehicle as electric and generate specialized reports based on these designations.

Flagging a Vehicle as an EV

1. Hover over User Management and click User Search.

2. Enter your search criteria to locate and select the specific user whose vehicle you wish to manage.

3. Click the Vehicles tab located on the user's profile.

4. Click the license plate link for the specific vehicle you wish to edit.

5. Enable the Electric Vehicle checkbox within the vehicle information pop-up window.

6. Click the Save Changes button.

Identifying and Reporting on EVs

Administrators can identify electric vehicles in the system using two primary methods:

• User Profile Indicator: When viewing the Vehicles tab of a user profile, EVs are clearly identified by a blue thunderbolt icon next to the license plate. Hovering over this icon displays a helpful tooltip confirming it is an electric vehicle.

• Vehicle Report: Administrators can quickly get a comprehensive list of all EVs in the system using the Search by Plate tool.

  1. Hover over User Management, hover over Vehicles, and click Search by Plate.

  2. Enable the Electric Vehicle checkbox in the search filters.

  3. Click the Search button. The resulting list will include an EV column to help you easily identify all flagged vehicles.

User Portal Experience

Users can follow a similar, streamlined process to designate their own vehicles as electric:

1. Log into the OPS-COM user portal.

2. Navigate to the page listing the active vehicles associated with the account.

3. Click the Edit button for the desired vehicle.

4. Enable the Electric Vehicle checkbox in the vehicle details window and save the changes.

Much like the administrative view, end-users can visually identify their own EVs by the blue thunderbolt icon displayed directly next to the vehicle's license plate in their vehicle list.

Best Practices and Considerations

• Manage dedicated charging stations: Use the EV flag to manage access to dedicated charging station areas. You can strategically create specific lots or permit types that are strictly only available to users with a flagged EV on their profile.

• Track sustainability metrics: Regularly run the Search by Plate report with the Electric Vehicle filter enabled. This allows you to accurately track the number of EVs in your parking system over time and formally measure the adoption of green transportation.

• Enforce green policies: If your organization has EV-specific parking policies (such as 'EVs Only' parking stalls), the EV flag provides the critical data needed to enforce these rules. Enforcement officers can easily verify EV status through standard vehicle lookups on their handheld devices.

• Encourage user self-management: Encourage users to accurately update their vehicle information, including the EV flag, during permit registration or annual renewals. Pushing this responsibility to the user ensures your data remains accurate without requiring manual administrative updates for every single vehicle.