Need for Electrification of Highways using Electric Mules to solve the Electrification of Inter-city Transportation

Continuing with my concept of using electric trucks for reducing transportation costs and for Electrification of Highways using Electric Mules to solve the Electrification of Inter-city Transportation, below are the details of the policy measures required.

1.0  A set of pilot e-highway projects may be conceptualized for specified “toll sections” of prominent National Highway’s. Such pilot’s shall use electrical powered trailer mules to;

1.1  Enable use of electricity as the energy for travel of existing diesel trucks.

1.11 Create a framework that involves minimum infrastructure creation and minimum need for modification of existing vehicles

1.2  Enable the operation of the combined infrastructure by toll operators with digital management & payments.

1.3  Serve as an infrastructure template – that can be scaled up to required levels and be exported to other countries

1.4  Adoption of the Rivigo model https://rivigo.com may be considered – to improve quality of life of truck drivers & productivity of the transportation sector as well as reduce the Total Cost of Transportation (TCT)

2.0  The trailer mules shall be powered by overhead electricity supply system – based on existing well proven electrification technologies – ex: Railway/Metro systems.

2.1  The trailer mules can be manufactured by Indian automobile sector.

2.2  For smooth operation of such “mules”, appropriate facilities shall need to be created at specified locations on the national highways such that they are well integrated with the toll booth operations.

2.3 Trailer mule integration infrastructure needs to be created at the head of a highway and at the tail of the highway

3.0  The payback periods for these e-highway projects need to seen in the context of them being a national infrastructure that shall significantly reduce diesel consumption & thereby direct environmental pollution as well as reduction of gap in Current Account Deficit as oil imports constitute the single largest component of out imports

4.0  To expedite the pilot projects it is suggested that GoI creates a policy wherein Toll Operators can introduce the Electrified Highway plus Electric Mule infrastructure as a service to its toll road truck users. Since each highway can choose their own standards for implementation, so there is no need to setup standards for the first few implementations as there is no need for interoperability. Standards can be created after a few implementations. In parallel, a group may be constituted to handhold the interested toll operators to create this infrastructure. Government may provide incentive in the form of tax breaks, interest subvention and extension of the concessionaire period etc. The model needs to ensure that the price charged from the trucks for electric mule based transportation is significantly less than the fuel cost of the trucks for that stretch of highway.

5.0 The focus should be to have infrastructure innovation from an Indian perspective rather than force-fit concepts from western countries. It would also lead to very significant job creation and increase in efficiency of logistics in the country while also leading to increase in exports of good and services related to the new technology created.

The above is significant in the context that 40% of traffic moves on 2% of the roads that are constituted by national highways. So any electrification of the highways can potentially reduce 40% diesel consumption and hence reduce pollution, reduce cost of logistics and hence the competitiveness of the country and reduce the Current Account Deficit.