What open data must your public chargers provide?

Public charger operators must provide accurate reference and availability data in a machine-readable form [S1]. Government guidance specifies status updates within 30 seconds [S2]. Your host dashboard is a separate service. Before opening, establish who operates the chargers, who publishes their data and how your site will test that the published location and status are correct. Checked October 2026.

Last checked 16 October 2026

Which chargers need to provide open data?

Start by mapping who can use each parking area and charger. A private staff installation and a visitor car park need separate assessment. The regulations define public charging by access, including access available to a section of the public [S1]. Ask your solicitor to confirm the position where your site has mixed users.

Write down the actual access arrangement. Include opening hours, gates, permits and any restrictions. Do not assume a charger is private simply because the car park belongs to your business.

Read public versus private chargepoints before specifying software. Ask the proposed operator to state which bays it considers public and why. Review that classification if you later open staff bays to visitors. Treat the review as part of the change process.

What charger information must be available?

The legal requirement covers reference and availability data [S1]. Reference information describes the charger; availability describes its current state. Use the government’s data-field guidance to check the implementation rather than substituting your own abbreviated list [S2].

For your host acceptance process, ask the operator to show the published record alongside a walk around the site. The following checks are suggested tasks, not a replacement for the full technical specification.

Ask who edits each field and who approves changes. Your reception team may notice a wrong entrance description before the software team does. Give them a route for correction and request confirmation when it is complete.

What is OCPI, and is it the same as OCPP?

OCPI means Open Charge Point Interface. The regulations identify version 2.2.1 as their data requirement [S1]. Ask the operator to identify the interface and records it will use for your installation.

OCPP means Open Charge Point Protocol. It concerns communication between charging equipment and its management system. The protocol maintainers describe that purpose [S4]. Read our OCPP and OCPI guide when preparing questions for the technical team.

In your procurement brief, keep equipment communication, public data publication and host reporting as separate deliverables. Ask for a demonstration of each. A tick beside a protocol name is less useful than a working example using the records for your site.

Do not accept a statement that an interface exists as evidence that your coordinates, access details and tariff are correct. Require the commissioning checklist to identify the responsible tester and any unresolved issues.

How quickly must availability changes appear?

Government guidance requires a change in the equipment’s status to be reflected in the data within 30 seconds [S2]. Ask the operator to demonstrate this at commissioning and after material platform changes.

Plan a controlled test with the installer. Record the initial state, the event time and the published state. Use safe test procedures agreed by the installer; do not create an electrical fault to test a data feed. Keep timestamped evidence and the explanation of any delay.

Test the public output separately from the host dashboard. If your dashboard changes but the public output does not, log the difference with the operator. Ask which system holds the authoritative status and how the publication service receives updates.

Include a correction and escalation process in your operating plan. Allocate responsibility for reporting communications failures and checking recovery. Review whether a fault affected an individual bay or the whole site before making public statements.

How do maps receive the charger information?

Government guidance explains that an application programming interface, or API, is the widely used way to communicate machine-readable data; the required data must be accessible to recipients [S2]. Ask the operator for its access instructions and a sample response from your site’s record.

Keep publication and appearance in a particular map as separate acceptance questions. Request evidence of the published feed and ask each relevant listing service how it ingests updates. Do not promise a map update time without confirmation from that service.

Use our charger listing guide to prepare location information. Agree a process for new bays, changed entrances and permanent removal. Keep a record of what was submitted and what was checked, so your team can investigate stale listings.

Who is responsible when the data is wrong?

Identify the legal operator and the organisations supplying its software. The duties attach to the operator under the regulations [S1]. Ask your solicitor how responsibilities and remedies should be allocated in the host agreement; outsourcing a task should not leave your site without a named contact.

For day-to-day management, make the operator responsible for investigating a discrepancy, correcting the source record and confirming publication. Ask for an incident reference and closure evidence. Keep the site team responsible for promptly reporting changed physical access and parking arrangements.

Protect driver information during investigation. The ICO’s data-minimisation principle applies to personal data [S3]. Demonstrate status changes with test sessions where possible, and avoid adding a customer’s payment or account details to an open support record.

At contract exit, require a handover plan for identifiers, data corrections and publication responsibilities. Review the operator switching guide before signing. Make any export fees and transition work explicit.

What should you do next?

Prepare a bay list, access plan and data acceptance checklist. Then get matched with an installer that covers your area and ask who will publish and test your records.

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