Reaching Commercial Deployment of Electric Road Systems : Barriers and Opportunities from the Perspective of eRoadArlanda

Sammanfattning: This master's thesis is written on behalf of the Royal Institute of Technology and the Swedish Transport Administration. The purpose of the study was to investigate, from a theoretical framework, the potential transition towards ERS from a specific actor's perspective. This actor is a consortium that represents and runs a small-scale socio-technical experiment in the form of an ERS demonstration project. The author has conducted the study through two main steps. The first step was to form an empirical starting point in the form of a literature study and interview study, followed by the creation of a theoretical framework with the central theory of transition management. The second step was a case study in the form of the ERS demonstration project eRoadArlanda, which was conducted through an interview study. Conclusions are based on the empirical material from the case study following the theoretical framework and concern the barriers and opportunities that exist within the development work regarding the transition towards ERS. In recent years, ERS has been mentioned as a strong candidate to counter act the fossil dependenceof the transport sector. The transport sector is characterized as a sophisticated mature sociotechnical system in an incremental fossil-driven technological development pathway and, hence, is naturally resistant to radical changes. In recent years, driven by progressive political climate goals, the need to establish solutions for the transport sector's fossil dependency has intensified. This has led to the potential ERS solution, which, through years of various development projects, especially in the form of demonstration projects, is now being evaluated to be tested commercially in a pilot. This leads to various challenges and uncertainties and forms the starting point of the study. The study investigates a specific actor's perspective within a broad empirical context in the form of apotential transition towards ERS. A theoretical framework with the central theory of transition management has been used to explain critical factors within the studied phenomenon. Transition management is a framework that aims to facilitate socio-technical transitions by working with shared multi-level problem structuring and vision-creation, thereby facilitating knowledge development and multi-level participation. The result of the study is based on that the driving force of establishing ERS originally descended from a private and public collaboration and that this driving force, in recent years, has become more politicized. Within this aspect, the author highlights barriers in the form of disagreements regarding the problem that ERS intend to solve and a divide regarding—which characterizations should characterize the future system ERS. Also, opportunities are highlighted—which are, aspects of the transition have been in accordance with the theoretical framework and can constitute a future basis for a successful transition to ERS.