Alejandro Gutierrez-Alcoba

The UK government’s ambitious plan of reaching net-zero carbon emissions for 2050 sets an important challenge for decarbonising transportation, and in particular for freight road transportation, due to the limitations of electric batteries on Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs). To overcome these limitations, the idea of building a network of ‘electric roads’, a technology that allows vehicles to travel powered directly from the electricity grid, is gaining momentum. Recently, the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight presented a plan to install catenary cables in 65% of the roads travelled by HGVs (7500 km of road) by the late 2030s. A large network of electric roads would allow the fleet of conventional HGVs to transition into a fleet of electric HGVs without relying on large batteries.

This project aims to investigate the impact of catenary systems in large road networks in terms of economic costs and mitigation of pollution, to assess its feasibility and adoption and, in general, to provide insights regarding decisions to maximise the positive benefits of this technology and an early adoption by freight operators. Our methodology approach relies on Operations Research techniques framed by two main questions: 1) How would road freight transportation routes be affected in the presence of electric roads?  2) Which decisions are important to design an optimal roll-out plan?

Our findings will be disseminated in research articles and will present a case study of the UK road network. The data gathered for the project and their algorithms will have the potential for further research and tools that could be used by our industry partner and other stakeholders.

This TRAIN@Ed project has received industry funding from Costain and funding from the DDI programme and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 801215.

For more information visit Edinburgh Research Explorer Profile.

On the Road to cutting emissions: COP26 Article.

Video: Decarbonising Long-Haul Freight. 

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