Urban Vans, E- Commerce and Road Freight Transport

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Bonilla
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
Anna Pernestål ◽  
Albin Engholm ◽  
Marie Bemler ◽  
Gyözö Gidofalvi

Road freight transport is a key function of modern societies. At the same time, road freight transport accounts for significant emissions. Digitalization, including automation, digitized information, and artificial intelligence, provide opportunities to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and increase service levels in road freight transport. Digitalization may also radically change the business ecosystem in the sector. In this paper, the question, “How will digitalization change the road freight transport landscape?” is addressed by developing four exploratory future scenarios, using Sweden as a case study. The results are based on input from 52 experts. For each of the four scenarios, the impacts on the road freight transport sector are investigated, and opportunities and barriers to achieving a sustainable transportation system in each of the scenarios are discussed. In all scenarios, an increase in vehicle kilometers traveled is predicted, and in three of the four scenarios, significant increases in recycling and urban freight flows are predicted. The scenario development process highlighted how there are important uncertainties in the development of the society that will be highly important for the development of the digitized freight transport landscape. One example is the sustainability paradigm, which was identified as a strategic uncertainty.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 823
Author(s):  
Mehdi Jahangir Samet ◽  
Heikki Liimatainen ◽  
Oscar Patrick René van Vliet ◽  
Markus Pöllänen

Medium and heavy-duty battery electric trucks (BETs) may play a key role in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from road freight transport. However, technological challenges such as limited range and cargo carrying capacity as well as the required charging time need to be efficiently addressed before the large-scale adoption of BETs. In this study, we apply a geospatial data analysis approach by using a battery electric vehicle potential (BEVPO) model with the datasets of road freight transport surveys for analyzing the potential of large-scale BET adoption in Finland and Switzerland for trucks with gross vehicle weight (GVW) of over 3.5 t. Our results show that trucks with payload capacities up to 30 t have the most potential for electrification by relying on the currently available battery and plug-in charging technology, with 93% (55% tkm) and 89% (84% tkm) trip coverage in Finland and Switzerland, respectively. Electric road systems (ERSs) would be essential for covering 51% trips (41% tkm) of heavy-duty trucks heavier than 30 t in Finland. Furthermore, range-extender technology could improve the trip electrification potential by 3–10 percentage points (4–12 percentage points of tkm).


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2754
Author(s):  
Heikki Liimatainen ◽  
Phil Greening ◽  
Pratyush Dadhich ◽  
Anna Keyes

The potential effects of implementing longer and heavier vehicles (LHVs) in road freight transport have been studied in various countries, nationally and internationally, in Europe. These studies have focused on the implementation of LHVs on certain types of commodities and the experience from countries like Finland and Sweden, which have a long tradition of using LHVs, and in which LHVs used for all types of commodities have not been widely utilised. This study aimed to assess the impacts of long and heavy vehicles on various commodities in the United Kingdom based on the Finnish experiences in order to estimate the possible savings in road freight transport vehicle kilometres, costs, and CO2 emissions in the United Kingdom if LHVs would be introduced and used similarly to in Finland in the transport of various commodities. The study shows that the savings of introducing longer and heavier vehicles in the United Kingdom would be 1.5–2.6 billion vehicle kms, £0.7–1.5 billion in transport costs, and 0.35–0.72 Mt in CO2 emissions. These findings are well in line with previous findings in other countries. The results confirm that considerable savings in traffic volume and emissions can be achieved and the savings are very likely to outweigh possible effects of modal shift from rail to road.


Author(s):  
Alberto Mendoza ◽  
Antonio García

In the past few years, tools have been developed based on different communication means with the purpose of achieving a safer, more efficient, and environment-friendly operation of vehicular flows in the transport systems. Some of the early means generally involved a very strong human participation. In the course of time and with the rapid progress made in electronics, telecommunications, and computer systems, such processes have become automated until generating a series of technologies that currently are incorporated into the single generic term of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). This research has multiple purposes. First, some characteristics of road freight transport in Mexico are presented. Then, with such characteristics under consideration, the ITS technologies with the largest potential for application to that transportation type are described. A vision of future implementation is shown. Finally, some conclusions are presented.


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