The Haulier in Road Freight Electrification: Exploring Influencing Factors and the Role of Complexity

Abstract: Road hauliers as vehicle owners and those responsible for transport execution have received limited attention from academia when it comes to their role in adopting heavy-duty battery-electric trucks (HBEVs). This research addresses this gap by exploring road hauliers’ adoption of HBEVs. Qualitative case studies and semi-structured interviews in a Swedish context were the main methods employed. Descriptive analysis of register data and statistics from Swedish public authorities complemented the qualitative data. Findings show that hauliers face numerous influencing factors in HBEV adoption including both challenges and enablers. One important factor is the haulier’s customer. The findings also indicate that the large number of influencing factors and their dynamism lead to high complexity for hauliers in HBEV adoption. Hauliers respond to influencing factors through risk and cost management, through careful operational planning, collaboration with partners, learning, as well as by employing various strategic approaches. These responses are at the same time ways to manage the complexity of electrification by either reducing or accommodating for it. Depending on the haulier’s strategic positioning, there is not just mere reaction to electrification’s challenges but also more active engagement by seizing strategic opportunities. With the haulier’s perspective as a starting point, findings point to the adoption of road freight electrification being characterised by bottom-up self-organisation through interactions between individual actors in local contexts. Top-down control mechanisms such as policy and regulation also play a role but appear to be more secondary. Another insight from this research is that hauliers can be more proactive and interested in electrification than commonly assumed. However, to move forward they may need to leverage their existing network, such as haulage cooperatives, more effectively than they do today in order to access the support needed in adoption. At the same time, customers and political decision makers need to increase their understanding of hauliers’ business conditions so they can provide adequate support.

Bio:  Sabrina Brunner is a PhD student at Linköping University and the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). Her research focuses on the electrification of heavy trucks, with particular attention to the perspectives, decision-making processes, and practical challenges faced by road hauliers in the transition toward an electrified freight transport system. Methodologically, her work is mainly grounded in qualitative approaches. She recently completed her licentiate thesis and is now expanding her research through longitudinal case studies that examine hauliers’ adoption of battery-electric heavy trucks over time, with specific focus on changes in the relationships between hauliers and important stakeholders.