Wireless Charging in Urban Traffic Flow

Electric vehicles stop routinely at traffic signals and bus stops. These studies use city-scale SUMO simulations with SAE J2954-based wireless charging pads (11 kW) placed in front of traffic lights and at bus stops, activated only while vehicles are stationary.

In an Ingolstadt (InTAS) scenario with a 5% EV share, 1,071 EVs were analysed over seven simulated hours. An average urban trip lasted 641 s, of which 69 s (10.8%) was spent at red lights across about three stops. Red-light charging offset about 6.4% of trip energy without any change in driver behaviour — typically adding up to 1 km of range per trip, and over 4 km for some vehicles (MSCC 2025).

A second study used the Monaco (MoST) scenario between 04:00 and 10:00, with 37,902 vehicles inserted, 15% electric cars and 11% electric buses (2030 projections), and chargers at 12 signalised intersections and bus stops (11 kW, 93% efficiency). Distributing charging across operating hours flattened the grid load; shifting the same energy into a single depot-charging window produced a sharp peak. Temporal synchronisation, rather than the amount of energy, dominated grid stress (eNergetics 2025).

Open challenges include pad alignment, durable in-road installation and maintenance; the results motivate field trials that couple charging policies with real traffic and feeder limits.