  Electric road systems (ERS) are roads that allow compatible vehicles to be
powered by grid electricity while in transit, reducing the need for stopping to
recharge electric batteries. We investigate how this technology can affect
routing and delivery decisions for hybrid heavy good vehicles (HGVs) travelling
on a ERS network to support the demand of a single product faced by a set of
retailers in the network. We introduce the Electric Roads Routing Problem,
which accounts for the costs of electricity and fuel on a ERS network,
consumption that are affected by the battery level of the vehicle in each step
of the journey, the routing decisions and the variable weight of the vehicle,
which depends on vehicle load and delivery decisions. In particular, we study a
stochastic demand version of the problem, formulating a mathematical
programming heuristic and proving its effectiveness. We use our model on a
realistic instance of the problem, showcasing the different strategies that a
vehicle may follow depending on fuel costs in relation to the costs of
electricity.
