Siemens presented the 'eHighway' for the first time in 2012. The system is to be built on the A5 federal highway between the Zeppelinheim/Cargo City South junction of Frankfurt Airport and Darmstadt/Weiterstadt. This field trial will be the first time the eHighway has been tested on a public road in Germany. Siemens is responsible for the planning, construction and optional maintenance of the system. It is being implemented as part of the joint project 'Electrified, innovative heavy goods traffic on freeways' (ELISA) led by Hessen Mobil and funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. Hessen Mobil is responsible for the planning, construction, operation and management of the Hessian traffic route network.

Siemens has already implemented an eHighway in Sweden: An overhead line system for electric and hybrid trucks has been undergoing testing north of Stockholm since June 2016 - the details in the picture gallery:

With regard to the project in Germany, Gerd Riegelhuth, Head of the Transport Department at Hessen Mobil, says: "The installation of the system is intended to provide practical proof of the integration capability of overhead line systems in the road space. The system is to be integrated into real transport chains and the feasibility of climate-neutral goods delivery in the urban area of Frankfurt is to be demonstrated.

"With the eHighway, we have created an economically viable solution for climate-neutral road freight transport for the first time. Our technology is therefore a real alternative to truck transportation with combustion engines that already exists today," says Roland Edel, Head of Technology in the Mobility division.

According to the company, the eHighway is twice as efficient as combustion engines. This means not only a halving of energy consumption but also a reduction in local air pollution. The core element of the system is an intelligent pantograph in combination with a hybrid drive system. Trucks equipped with this system are supplied with electrical energy from the overhead lines during the journey and then drive locally with zero CO2 emissions. On roads that are not equipped with overhead lines, a hybrid motor drives the trucks.