How to charge while driving: scheduling point-to-point deliveries of an electric vehicle under overhead wiring

Abstract Electrifying road-based long-haul transportation is an intricate task. Given the current state of battery technology, either driving ranges electric commercial vehicles (ECVs) are too short or high-capacity batteries costly and so heavy that payloads limited. An old, yet recently revitalized, charging infrastructure currently evaluated on multiple test tracks around globe alternatively suggests trucks while driving. Analogously to trams, trolley buses, trains, ECVs powered by motor connected overhead wires via a movable contact arm supported extra conventional drive, which steps in non-electrified road segments. This paper dedicated routing single ECV executing full-truckload point-to-point deliveries along highway main line where charge-while-drive fixedly installed some but not all parts road. We formulate resulting optimization problem, investigate computational complexity, provide suitable solution procedures based decomposition. Once this available, we explore induction effect i.e., amount detours required gather enough energy for next job. Our results show can be considerable may lead substantial traffic compared charge-while-park technology.