scholarly journals Decarbonising road freight: Is truck automation and platooning an opportunity?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Paddeu ◽  
Jozef Denby
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Road Transport ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Operational Conditions ◽  
Road Freight ◽  
The Uk

AbstractGovernments, industry and academia are paying high attention to autonomous vehicles and platooning, due to their high potential to transform public and private transport and reduce carbon emissions generated by road transport. The road freight sector is expected to be an early adopter of the autonomous technology due to the potential cost reduction for logistics companies. However, despite the expected fuel savings and polluting emission reductions due to truck platooning, actual benefits would strongly depend on the adopted technology and the operational conditions of the system. This paper investigates the potential for truck platooning to reduce carbon emissions from road freight, presenting a series of scenarios that vary by adoption rates, operational models and platoon size. Scenarios were co-designed with freight stakeholders to build a Truck Platooning Roadmap (2025–2050), considering a specific case study: the UK. Polluting emissions and related external costs are calculated across the different scenarios. Results show that there is high uncertainty for the adoption of truck platooning, with a potential first phase involving a small pool of low-automated trucks, and a second phase with a larger pool of high-automated trucks, reflecting higher economic and environmental benefits. A series of other technological and policy considerations are presented to support policymakers to draw a zero-carbon road freight strategy. Graphic abstract

Analysis and Comparison of Road Freight Transport Cost in 20 European Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panagiotis Kotsios ◽  
Dimitrios Folinas
Keyword(s):  
Road Transport ◽  
Freight Transport ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Transport Cost ◽  
Road Freight ◽  
Cost Competitiveness ◽  
Cost Categories ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Cost Factors

Road transport is one of the most popular and practical means of freight transport in the world today. However, the cost of road freight transport may differ from one country to the next due to variances in a number of cost factors, including fuels, wages, taxation, tolls, insurance, maintenance, tyres, repairs, parking spaces, etc. The goal of this research was to measure and compare the cost of road freight transport in the 20 European countries with the highest recorded volume of tonne-kilometres, in order to draw conclusions about the cost competitiveness of road freight transport among them. Cost competitiveness in the sample was measured by 4 main cost categories: fuels, drivers' wages, tyres, and tolls. The results show large cost variations between countries. The countries found to have the lowest road freight transport cost were Lithuania, Poland and Bulgaria, and those with the highest costs were Norway, Austria, and the UK. The largest differences in costs were met in tolls and other road taxes, followed by drivers' wages, fuels, and finally tyres.

scholarly journals Impact on carbon emissions of online study for a cohort of overseas students: A retrospective cohort study

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
Richard F Heller ◽  
Ya-Yen Sun ◽  
Zhe Guo ◽  
Arunima Malik
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
University Education ◽  
Full Time ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Overseas Students ◽  
Small Cohort ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The Uk

Background: One of the benefits of online education is the potential reduction in carbon emissions through the decrease in travel to attend a university in person. We estimated the savings in CO2 emissions of an international cohort of master’s students who studied fully online from their home countries, rather than travelling to the UK and living there while attending university. Methods: The city and country of residence of a cohort of students who first enrolled in the fully online Peoples-uni/Manchester Metropolitan University MPH programme between the second semester of 2011 and the first semester 2013 were recorded. We estimated the aviation emissions between Manchester, UK and the cities where students reside, and subtracted the per capita emissions for the country of origin from the per capita emissions for the UK over the time that the student would have spent in Manchester as a full-time student, based on the semester in which they first enrolled. Results: 128 students enrolled from 55 cities in 31 countries. 93 students were from a range of African countries and 18 from the Indian sub-continent. Flights to and from Manchester were estimated to have accounted for 114,553kg of CO2 and living in Manchester for the duration of their course compared with staying in the home country would have been equivalent to 854,904kg of CO2. The combined net savings was 969,457kg of CO2. Conclusions: A small cohort of overseas students, largely from Africa and India, studied online rather than attending university in the UK. The likely saving by this small cohort of nearly a million kg of CO 2 emissions offers an indication of the potential environmental benefits of offering university education online to overseas students.

scholarly journals Comparing carbon emissions between online and in-person study for a cohort of overseas students: A retrospective cohort study

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
Richard F. Heller ◽  
Ya-Yen Sun ◽  
Zhe Guo ◽  
Arunima Malik
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
University Education ◽  
Full Time ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Overseas Students ◽  
Small Cohort ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The Uk

Background  One of the benefits of online education is the potential reduction in carbon emissions through the decrease in travel to attend a university in person. We estimated the savings in CO2 emissions of an international cohort of master’s students who studied fully online from their home countries, rather than travelling to the UK and living there while attending university.  Methods  The city and country of residence of a cohort of students who first enrolled in the fully online Peoples-uni/Manchester Metropolitan University MPH programme between the second semester of 2011 and the first semester 2013 were recorded. We estimated the aviation emissions between Manchester, UK and the cities where students reside, and subtracted the per capita emissions for the country of origin from the per capita emissions for the UK over the time that the student would have spent in Manchester as a full-time student, based on the semester in which they first enrolled.   Results  128 students enrolled from 55 cities in 31 countries. 93 students were from a range of African countries and 18 from the Indian sub-continent. Flights to and from Manchester were estimated to have accounted for 114,553kg of CO2 and living in Manchester for the duration of their course compared with staying in the home country would have been equivalent to 854,904kg of CO2. The combined net savings was 969,457kg of CO2.   Conclusions  A small cohort of overseas students, largely from Africa and India, studied online rather than attending university in the UK. The saving by this small cohort of nearly a million kg of CO2 emissions through not attending university in-person offers an indication of the potential environmental benefits of offering university education online to overseas students.

AUTONOMOUS SAILING VESSELS FOR SHORT SEA SHIPPING

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Chaplin
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Road Transport ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Traffic Patterns ◽  
Short Sea Shipping ◽  
Cargo Transport ◽  
Surface Vessels ◽  
Round Wood ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Cost

This project examined the coast of the UK to find a route to test proof of concept vessels to demonstrate the commercial and functional viability of small Windpowered Autonomous Surface Vessels (WASV) for cargo transport. Several suitable areas were identified, and one area, the Firth of Clyde, was investigated more closely. Suggestions were limited to currently active ports and cargos investigated were limited to the minor bulk trades. A pair of suitable ports, Campbeltown and Troon, were identified and a cargo, round wood timber, was found. Over the route identified the costs of using road transport, conventional small coasters and WASV were estimated. It was found that the cost of using the WASV would be comparable with the costs of the conventional alternatives, with the advantage of reduced carbon emissions and potentially less intrusive traffic patterns.

scholarly journals Comparing carbon emissions between online and in-person study for a cohort of overseas students: A retrospective cohort study

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 849
Author(s):  
Richard F Heller ◽  
Ya-Yen Sun ◽  
Zhe Guo ◽  
Arunima Malik
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
University Education ◽  
Full Time ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Overseas Students ◽  
Small Cohort ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
The Uk

Background: One of the benefits of online education is the potential reduction in carbon emissions through the decrease in travel to attend a university in person. We estimated the savings in CO2 emissions of an international cohort of master’s students who studied fully online from their home countries, rather than travelling to the UK and living there while attending university. Methods: The city and country of residence of a cohort of students who first enrolled in the fully online Peoples-uni/Manchester Metropolitan University MPH programme between the second semester of 2011 and the first semester 2013 were recorded. We estimated the aviation emissions between Manchester, UK and the cities where students reside, and subtracted the per capita emissions for the country of origin from the per capita emissions for the UK over the time that the student would have spent in Manchester as a full-time student, based on the semester in which they first enrolled. Results: 128 students enrolled from 55 cities in 31 countries. 93 students were from a range of African countries and 18 from the Indian sub-continent. Flights to and from Manchester were estimated to have accounted for 114,553kg of CO2 and living in Manchester for the duration of their course compared with staying in the home country would have been equivalent to 854,904kg of CO2. The combined net savings was 969,457kg of CO2. Conclusions: A small cohort of overseas students, largely from Africa and India, studied online rather than attending university in the UK. The saving by this small cohort of nearly a million kg of CO2 emissions through not attending university in-person offers an indication of the potential environmental benefits of offering university education online to overseas students.

Listening for the “Still Small Voice” of Mendelssohn’s Domestic Elijah

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-77
Author(s):  
Peter Mercer-Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Second Phase ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Interpretive Approach ◽  
Will To Live ◽  
Three Phases

The notion that there might be autobiographical, or personally confessional, registers at work in Mendelssohn’s 1846 Elijah has long been established, with three interpretive approaches prevailing: the first, famously advanced by Prince Albert, compares Mendelssohn’s own artistic achievements with Elijah’s prophetic ones; the second, in Eric Werner’s dramatic formulation, discerns in the aria “It is enough” a confession of Mendelssohn’s own “weakening will to live”; the third portrays Elijah as a testimonial on Mendelssohn’s relationship to the Judaism of his birth and/or to the Christianity of his youth and adulthood. This article explores a fourth, essentially untested, interpretive approach: the possibility that Mendelssohn crafts from Elijah’s story a heartfelt affirmation of domesticity, an expression of his growing fascination with retiring to a quiet existence in the bosom of his family. The argument unfolds in three phases. In the first, the focus is on that climactic passage in Elijah’s Second Part in which God is revealed to the prophet in the “still small voice.” The turn from divine absence to divine presence is articulated through two clear and powerful recollections of music that Elijah had sung in the oratorio’s First Part, a move that has the potential to reconfigure our evaluation of his role in the public and private spheres in those earlier passages. The second phase turns to Elijah’s own brief sojourn into the domestic realm, the widow’s scene, paying particular attention to the motivations that may have underlain the substantial revisions to the scene that took place between the Birmingham premiere and the London premiere the following year. The final phase explores the possibility that the widow and her son, the “surrogate family” in the oratorio, do not disappear after the widow’s scene, but linger on as “para-characters” with crucial roles in the unfolding drama.

Autonomous vehicles and freight traffic: towards better efficiency of road, rail or urban logistics?

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Bucsky
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Road Transport ◽  
Transport Sector ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Car Industry ◽  
Level Of Automation ◽  
Current State ◽  
Freight Traffic ◽  
Levels Of Automation ◽  
Private Car

Abstract The freight transport sector is a low profit and high competition business and therefore has less ability to invest in research and development in the field of autonomous vehicles (AV) than the private car industry. There are already different levels of automation technologies in the transport industry, but most of these are serving niche demands and answers have yet to be found about whether it would be worthwhile to industrialise these technologies. New innovations from different fields are constantly changing the freight traffic industry but these are less disruptive than on other markets. The aim of this article is to show the current state of development of freight traffic with regards to AVs and analyse which future directions of development might be viable. The level of automation is very different in the case of different transport modes and most probably the technology will favour road transport over other, less environmentally harmful traffic modes.

scholarly journals Drivers of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic Overuse across Diverse Hospital Contexts—A Qualitative Study of Prescribers in the UK, Sri Lanka and South Africa

Antibiotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Carolyn Tarrant ◽  
Andrew M. Colman ◽  
David R. Jenkins ◽  
Edmund Chattoe-Brown ◽  
Nelun Perera ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Antimicrobial Stewardship ◽  
Broad Spectrum ◽  
Low Income ◽  
System Level ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Uk

Antimicrobial stewardship programs focus on reducing overuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics (BSAs), primarily through interventions to change prescribing behavior. This study aims to identify multi-level influences on BSA overuse across diverse high and low income, and public and private, healthcare contexts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 46 prescribers from hospitals in the UK, Sri Lanka, and South Africa, including public and private providers. Interviews explored decision making about prescribing BSAs, drivers of the use of BSAs, and benefits of BSAs to various stakeholders, and were analyzed using a constant comparative approach. Analysis identified drivers of BSA overuse at the individual, social and structural levels. Structural drivers of overuse varied significantly across contexts and included: system-level factors generating tensions with stewardship goals; limited material resources within hospitals; and patient poverty, lack of infrastructure and resources in local communities. Antimicrobial stewardship needs to encompass efforts to reduce the reliance on BSAs as a solution to context-specific structural conditions.

Static grid carbon factors – Can we do better?

2021 ◽  
pp. 014362442199196
Author(s):  
Jamie Risner ◽  
Anna Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Regional Analysis ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Carbon Intensity ◽  
External Temperature ◽  
Building Regulations ◽  
Calculation Methodology ◽  
Alternative Methodology ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

The average carbon intensity (gCO2e/kWh) of electricity provided by the UK National Grid is decreasing and becoming more time variable. This paper reviews the impact on energy calculations of using various levels of data resolution (half hourly, daily, monthly and annual) and of moving to region specific data. This analysis is in two parts, one focused on the potential impact on Part L assessments and the other on reported carbon emissions for existing buildings. Analysis demonstrated that an increase in calculated emissions of up to 12% is possible when using an emissions calculation methodology employing higher resolution grid carbon intensity data. Regional analysis indicated an even larger calculation discrepancy, with some regions annual emissions increasing by a factor of ten as compared to other regions. This paper proposes a path forward for the industry to improve the accuracy of analysis by using better data sources. The proposed change in calculation methodology is analogous to moving from using an annual average external temperature to using a CIBSE weather profile for a specific city or using a future weather file. Practical application: This paper aims to quantify the inaccuracy of a calculation methodology in common use in the industry and key to building regulations (specifically Building Regulations Part L – Conservation of Fuel and Power) – translating electricity consumption into carbon emissions. It proposes an alternative methodology which improves the accuracy of the calculation based on improved data inputs.

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