Expansion Strategies for Electric Road Systems (ERS) in Europe

The market development of alternative powertrains in European road freight transport will only be successful, if a network of alternative energy supply infrastructure is available. Electric road systems (ERS) powering battery electric trucks are one of the discussed alternative propulsion systems. They enable electric driving and dynamic battery charging and thus form a synergetic supply system to be combined with stationary charging of trucks. The ERS technology has been tested in several countries and its potential has been examined in further studies for other European countries. Against this background and in view of the current market situation with a strong focus on battery-electric trucks, a centrally coordinated ERS expansion plan in Europe is yet not to be expected in the near future. It is therefore all the more interesting to look at national ERS actions and to examine possible expansion strategies that can be derived from national or bi-national activities. The analysis of studies of eight European countries on application potential of ERS shows a high overlap of the prioritized routes at the national level with the European TEN-T core network and a relatively coherent connection of the national routes to cross-border, European corridors. Based on data on traffic volumes in European road freight traffic, particularly promising ERS corridors can be identified for early network development. These represent important north-south and east-west connections in European road freight transport and are concentrated in Central Europe. The analysis of the planning aspects of a bilateral implementation of ERS shows possible implementation options that can be carried out relatively independently of European coordination and are also used for other types of cross-border transport infrastructure projects. The economic analyses based on possible cross-border example corridors show that the refinancing of an ERS infrastructure via the users requires a high proportion of ERS vehicles on ERS routes. International projects along TEN-T corridors would ideally serve as "flagship projects" enforcing interoperability by limiting technical varieties. Assuming the success of such flagship projects they could stimulate a market driven pull for a joint European approach. This would then ultimately pave the way for a full electric European road freight network that synergistically combines ERS and stationary charging.