Abstract

To meet constraints faced by road freight in terms of significantly lowering or reducing CO2 emissions and"br" improved air quality an Electric Road System (ERS), based on an Overhead Contact Line (OCL)-hybrid heavyduty"br" vehicle (HDV), has been designed, developed, tested and demonstrated. The ERS demonstrated has twice"br" the energy efficiency of conventional diesel HDVs and enables usage of renewable energy. The technological"br" development was made possible by combining expertise from rail electrification, electric drives and a newly"br" developed active current collector for dynamically connecting to the OCL and receiving a continuous supply of"br" electricity to power the engine and store energy on-board. The research project demonstrated that a hybrid truck"br" can run in pure electric mode without any change in the operations for the driver and without concessions on"br" truck performance. This paper presents the latest results and points the way to a heavy-duty road freight system"br" with full electric power and full flexibility.