Adopting an Actor Analysis Framework to a Complex Technology Innovation Project: A Case Study of an Electric Road System

An electric road system (ERS) is a transportation solution that provides electricity for fully electric vehicles while in motion. This solution might contribute to sustainable transportation by overcoming range anxiety problems that fully electric vehicles, especially heavy vehicles, have encountered due to battery technology limitations. However, large-scale ERS implementations are challenging, both technically and socially. An ERS is not only an engineering project, but also a complex technology innovation system composed of multiple subsystems and stakeholders, which requires an interdisciplinary means of aligning relations, problems, and solutions. In the policy analysis domain, researchers have developed actor analysis methods to support policy making processes. Actor analysis methods can provide an analytical reflection in solving complex multi-actor policy making challenges that ERSs are also facing. To uncover the complexity of multiple subsystems and stakeholders involved in an ERS, this paper applied a method to align system characteristics with the stakeholders’ perceptions to understand multi-stakeholder contexts in complex technology innovation projects. Desk research was first conducted to summarise ERS characteristics. Then, the dynamic actor network analysis method framework was adopted to establish an action, factor, goal (AFG) list, which was revised by independent researchers. Next, the AFG list was used to collect the perceptions of the ERS stakeholders, expressed as AFG selections and causal links through stakeholder interviews. The resulting AFG list was iterated through two rounds of interviews and then validated in a Swedish ERS case workshop. The results from this methodology showed that the actor analysis method can not only be applied to policy analysis domains, but can also be applied to technology innovation complex systems, using the electric road system as a case study, to help uncover the ERS complexity from the concerns of stakeholders and to secure a pathway towards sustainable technology implementation.