AUTOMATIC PREDICTION OF VISITATIONS TO SPECIFIED POINTS OF INTEREST

Techniques are described herein for predicting popularity metrics and/or visitation metrics that are used in the selection of a point of interest (POI) for placement of an electric vehicle charging station (EVCS). The techniques involve training a machine learning model based on information obtained about POIs at which EVCSs are already installed. The information used to train the machine learning model includes, for each existing installation location: (a) visitation data that describes visitation features, and (b) popularity metrics and/or visitation metrics that have been generated for the location. When the machine learning model has been trained, the trained machine learning model predicts popularity metrics and/or visitation metrics for a POI location at which no EVCS has been installed based on the visitation data of that POI.