Skip to main content

Elonroad’s electric road and recharging lane for buses in Lund

Sweden’s Transport Administration (Trafikverket) has awarded a contract to the Elväg Syd consortium for an electric and recharging bus lane in the city of Lund. The demonstration area will be built in the bus lane along 1km of Getingevägen Road near central Lund. Construction will begin during the first quarter of 2020 and last for three years. The project’s budget is €9.3 million of which Trafikverket will contribute €8.3 million with the other consortium players supplying the remaining funds. Lun
April 17, 2019 Read time: 3 mins

Sweden’s Transport Administration (1096 Trafikverket) has awarded a contract to the Elväg Syd consortium for an electric and recharging bus lane in the city of Lund.

The demonstration area will be built in the bus lane along 1km of Getingevägen Road near central Lund. Construction will begin during the first quarter of 2020 and last for three years.

The project’s budget is €9.3 million of which Trafikverket will contribute €8.3 million with the other consortium players supplying the remaining funds.

Lund is a historic town of around 91,000 people with cobbled streets and home to Lund University, one of Sweden’s oldest educational institutes. The city also has one of Europe’s most developed cycling infrastructure. There are 4,800 bike parking spaces in the town, including a multi-storey facility at the railway station, more than 260km of bicycle paths and lanes. The government estimates that around 43% of journeys within the city are by bicycle.

The Elväg Syd consortium, which includes state, educational and private sector players, will use technology developed by one of the consortium members, Elonroad. Other members are Innovation Skåne coming on board as project manager, Kraftringen Energi, Lund municipality, Lund University of Technology, Skånetrafiken, Solaris Sverige and Sweden’s National Road and Transport Research Institute (7264 VTI).

The test road is based on a 200m long test track set up outside Lund in 2017 (see video). Elonroad’s concept involves a conductive rail - 5cm high and 30cm wide - laid on top of the asphalt or concrete road surface. The rail acts as a recharging infrastructure for electric vehicles with electric motors and batteries – although the Lund test site will be for only buses. The rail also has inclined sides to make it smooth for vehicles when drivers change lanes.

The rail consisting of short grounded segments are arranged along a single track. Every second segment can switch to positive when a car passes over it. Three contactors will supply a steady current rectified with diodes before charging the battery.

Rainwater passes under the road. During winter, snow can be removed by a special plow developed by Elonroad. Ice on the top surface of the rail will be melted by a heating system. A grounded strip will stop leaking current from the positive segment under the vehicle.

When the driver exits the rail system, the vehicle’s batteries take over for non-electric roads. Batteries take over automatically at exits and roundabouts.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • ERIC 2016: What shape the ‘Smart Road’?
    February 7, 2017
    Optimism about the future of highways worldwide abounded at the inaugural European Road Infrastructure Conference (ERIC) in Leeds, UK. Around 500 delegates passed through the varied sessions during the three-day event at the Royal Armouries Museum in the northern English city of Leeds. They came away with many visions of what a motorway and road could look like. But what speakers at the event - co-organised by the Brussels-based European Union Road Federation (ERF) and the UK’s Road Safety Markings Associat
  • Holding back
    February 6, 2012
    AN INNOVATIVE slurry wall solution has been used by Bachy Soletanche at the Alderley Edge By-Pass project in the UK. Bachy Soletanche provided assistance for the A34 Alderley Edge by-pass project in the UK being carried out by main contractor Birse Civils. This solution was required to tackle challenges posed by the water table at the Welsh Row section. Bachy Soletanche used its experience with slurry cut-off walls, a technique rarely used in Britain on road construction, to benefit a tricky section of the
  • Mählers launches the SOP-LB2800 sweeper for trucks and wheel loaders
    July 16, 2019
    Mählers, best known globally for its snow ploughs, has broadened its range of attachments with the addition of a vehicle-mounted hydraulic rotating sweeper. The SOP-LB2800 sweeper is intended for use on trucks and wheel loaders and features an "active" float mode to give balanced pressure on the ground and especially when following contours of the road surface. Active float gives the right brush pressure evenly across its full width, regardless of its position relative to the host vehicle. This also c
  • Fuel cell vehicle market will accelerate from 2015
    May 1, 2012
    While the market for fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) has been slower to develop than many anticipated a few years ago, major automakers including Toyota, Daimler, GM, Honda, and Hyundai have all publicly stated that fuel cells are a critical piece of a complete clean vehicle portfolio.