A Swedish test with an electric rail to charge vehicles while they drive is leading to a lot of questions from motorcyclists.

For five years there has been a light rail on Getingevägen in Lund. The rail has provided power for electric buses that are charged when the bus comes close to the rail. The project is called EVolution Road and has been financed by the Swedish Transport Administration. Now the project must be evaluated. In connection with this, enthusiastic articles have appeared in various media, where project manager Per Löfberg states that the light rail on the road “is a very good idea”.

Swedish motorcyclists’ organisation SMC – a member of FEMA – thinks differently and questions why important facts that were shared both with the Swedish Transport Administration and Lund municipality are completely absent in the latest media reporting.

SMC have followed the project with great interest. During the spring of 2021, they were contacted by many members who experienced slippage and poor friction on the electric road. One of the companies that SMC collaborates with, Roadfriction AB, did a friction measurement on the stretch. The measurement showed that a large part of the stretch does not meet the current requirements for friction. The limit value for friction is 0.5 and at its worst the friction was 0.12, which corresponds to a slippery ice road. The average for the road was 0.31, which is far below the approved value and corresponds to a road with packed snow.

The result is alarming from a road safety point of view. Something that is obviously most serious for those who travel on two wheels: motorcyclists and moped riders. But it also has consequences for the person sitting in a car. When one pair of wheels is braked on a stretch where the friction is 0.80 while the other pair of wheels is braked on a stretch where the friction is 0.12, an imbalance and traffic hazard occur as a result.

‘Instead of fixing the friction, they chose to completely ban two-wheeled vehicles from the road.’

When SMC became aware of how dangerous the road was, both the municipality of Lund and the Swedish Transport Administration were contacted with proposals for various measures. The most reasonable would undoubtedly have been to fix the road immediately so that the fiction corresponds to or exceeds the current value. Instead, they chose to completely ban two-wheeled vehicles from the road. A so-called solution, which for us who travel on two wheels is no solution at all.

Reading the project manager’s grandiose plans for expansion in Europe and big social gains with the electric road, SMC has a few questions: how about road safety? Do you want to ban all other traffic except heavy trucks and electric buses on the electric roads of the future? Do you choose to close your eyes to the traffic danger? Regardless of which way the Swedish Transport Administration chooses in the future, SMC urges all partners to bring all the facts about the project to the table for a transparent evaluation. SMC is happy to assist with its expertise in the evaluation phase.

FEMA has asked EVolution Road and Elonroad the questions below, but we have not received answers yet (to be continued):

• How are you taking road safety for these groups of road users into account within this project?
• Have any tests been done with regards to the friction of the system compared to the friction of the road surface?
• Have any tests been done to see how this system affects the stability of motorcyclists?

This video from Elonroad shows how an ‘electric road’ works:

EVolution Road has been commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration to build a test and demonstration site for electric roads. The purpose is to gain more knowledge about electric roads and explore the potential of electric roads as a complement in a fossil-free transport system. The installation of the electric road test site began in 2020 and the project will run until 2024. The idea behind the electric road is that charging the vehicle while driving eliminates the need to stop to charge the batteries, which saves time. Electric roads could, according to EVolution Road, also reduce the vehicle’s battery size significantly. This leads to advantages such as less environmental impact and lighter vehicles that allow you to carry more goods or passengers. In the EVolution Road project, a kilometer-long electric road is implemented and tested on a road section at Getingevägen in the Swedish town Lund. Conductive technology allows the power to be transmitted between a rail on top of the road and the vehicle, via a pick-up installed under the vehicle. This provides a power transfer from the rails to the vehicle for both propulsion and battery charging. Two different variants of the same technology are tested: a charging rail that is placed on top of the road and a charging rail that is immersed into the road. During the demonstration period, the Evolution Road team conducts tests and analysis that are shared with the Swedish Transport Administration. In the current phase, knowledge is obtained regarding technology, operations, usage, maintenance, environmental impact and more. Source: www.evolutionroad.se

Written by Wim Taal

Source: SMC

Top photograph courtesy of SMC

This article is subject to FEMA’s copyright