01626733

Component

To meet constraints faced by road freight in terms of significantly lowering or reducing CO₂ emissions and improved air quality an Electric Road System (ERS), based on an Overhead Contact Line (OCL)-hybrid heavy-duty vehicle (HDV), has been designed, developed, tested and demonstrated. The ERS demonstrated has twice the energy efficiency of conventional diesel HDVs and enables usage of renewable energy. The technological development was made possible by combining expertise from rail electrification, electric drives and a newly developed active current collector for dynamically connecting to the OCL and receiving a continuous supply of electricity to power the engine and store energy on-board. The research project demonstrated that a hybrid truck can run in pure electric mode without any change in the operations for the driver and without concessions on truck performance. The ERS infrastructure was successfully integrated into a highway environment. The result was the first fully operable prototype on a test track with dedicated infrastructure. During trials, the OCL-hybrid prototypes demonstrated full performance and suitability for everyday use. In addition to providing highly promising technological results, the tests also demonstrated benefits to the environment and economy. The ERS can be integrated with existing infrastructure, thus making it easier and cheaper to implement and maintain. Lower energy consumption yields lower operating costs and the resulting savings can finance the infrastructure investment. These aspects are currently being demonstrated on public roads. This paper presents the latest results and points the way to a heavy-duty road freight system with full electric power and full flexibility.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT060 Standing Committee on Trucking Industry Research.

01618707

17-00978

English

16p

2017

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Photos; References; Tables

Benefits; Electric vehicles; Energy consumption; Freight transportation; Heavy duty vehicles; Hybrid vehicles; Overhead utility lines; Pollutants; Prototypes; Trucks

Energy; Environment; Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-00978

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 10:15AM