eHighway – Solutions for electrified road freight transport

Transferring freight transport to rail has its limitations. Consequently the transport will need to be carried out by trucks that combine reliable service with minimum environmental impact. The eHighway system is twice as efficient as conventional internal combustion engines. The Siemens innovation supplies trucks with power from an overhead contact line. This means that not only energy consumption is cut by half but also local air pollution is reduced.

The Siemens innovation supplies trucks with power from an overhead contact line. This means that not only is energy consumption cut in half but also local air pollution is reduced. Siemens is demonstrating its eHighway system for the first time ever on public thoroughfares in California and Sweden. Near the US ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, two of the largest such facilities in the country, Siemens is currently installing a two-mile long overhead contact line system for hybrid electric trucks. A second demonstration project is also under construction on a two-kilometer, single-lane section of the E16 highway north of Stockholm, Sweden.

Siemens has been commissioned by the German state of Hesse to build an overhead contact line for electrified freight transport on a ten-kilometer stretch of autobahn. With this field trial, the eHighway will be tested on a public highway in Germany for the first time. The system will be installed on the A5 federal autobahn between the Zeppelinheim/Cargo City Süd interchange at the Frankfurt Airport and the Darmstadt/Weiterstadt interchange.
Siemens will be responsible for the planning, construction and, as an option, maintenance of the system. The system is being built as part of the joint project “Electrified, innovative heavy freight transport on autobahns” (ELISA) of Germany’s Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB). Hessen Mobil, responsible for road and transport management in Hesse, is managing the project.

Image Copyright: Scania CV AB

The first eHighway system on a public road opened in June 2016. For the coming two years, a Siemens catenary system for trucks will be tested on a two-kilometer stretch of the E16 highway north of Stockholm. The trial will use two diesel hybrid vehicles manufactured by Scania and adapted, in collaboration with Siemens, to operate under the catenary system. During the two-year trial, Sweden's Transport Administration Trafikverket and Gävleborg County want to create a knowledge base on whether the Siemens eHighway system is suitable for future commercial use and further deployment. As part of its climate protection strategy, Sweden has committed to having a fossil fuel independent transport sector by 2030.

The "ENUBA 2" project, which is part of the German Federal Government's beacon project called "Electric Mobility Concepts", is intended to lay the foundation for a new type of ecologically oriented, freight transport. A concept aimed at the electrification of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) via overhead contact lines has been developed in cooperation with the Scania company and its technical feasibility duly tested. The focus is on optimizing the integration of the drive system and pantograph into the vehicle and on providing the necessary traffic control systems.

The aim of the ENUBA project ("Electromobility in heavy commercial vehicles to reduce the environmental impact on densely populated areas"), which is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety (BMU), has therefore been to study how HGV traffic can become more energy-efficient and environmentally cleaner. In the context of this project Siemens produced an holistic concept for the electrification of HGV traffic by means catenaries and to test the technical feasibility of the system on a specially built test track in the north of Berlin, Germany. This test track enabled the design engineers to prove the overall technical feasibility of the HGV electrification system. Accompanying ecological studies, which accounted for various factors such as a comparison of the number of electric-powered transports versus those powered by internal combustion engines, confirm the impact-reducing potential of HGVs connected to an overhead contact line.