Decisions on the electrification of a road network

An electric road system (ERS) is a road that allows compatible electric vehicles to be powered by the electrical grid, while also charging their batteries. Deployed at scale on a wide road network, this technology allows for installing smaller batteries on vehicles, easing the adoption of electric Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs). In this talk, we discuss certain aspects regarding decision making on the design of electric road networks. Rolling out such systems in a large area requires time, and one of the challenges that emerge is how to manage the investment resulting in an early adoption by freight operators to switch their fleets from the early stages. Designing an ERS network based only on traffic flow data from road sensors may not result in early adoption of the technology. However, there are some approaches that can be used to generate a comprehensive and realistic set of freight routes that align with the observed traffic flows. To illustrate our points, we also present an inventory routing problem for an HGV navigating an ERS network. A mixed-integer linear programming heuristic chooses the best routes satisfying customer demand, which depends not only on the network design but also on retailers demand over time and the energy requirements of the vehicle, affected by delivery decisions.