Author: Raimonds Aronietis

I have been riding my Xiaomi M365 electric scooter since the beginning of summer and have become a big fan of it. It is an amazing mobility device that lets me move through Brussels and Paris and choose the most optimal routing depending on time of the day and traffic conditions. In early mornings when public transport frequency is low and also during rush hour when it is impossible to get into a metro it is nice to be able to avoid public transport.

I had never thought to calculate how much it actually costs to ride it. I knew it is cheap and never gave it more thought. People from Wired actually did the calculations and the results are surprising.

This is how my e-scooter puts money in my pocket every day…

Sky news has published a video showing some of the risks that a no-deal Brexit could bring. Let us hope that people in the UK never get to experience supply chain disruptions that are outlined in this video.

https://youtu.be/-psqbV2jD-c

Last week the European lawmakers also voted on CO2 rules for heavy vehicles, the EU’s first attempt to regulate trucks and buses. And it is not surprising at all why they felt the pressure to do so. It has actually been one of the areas where Europe has lagged behind the rest of the world, like China and the US.

There is something that seems forgotten. In relation to burning fuels in combustion engines there is another problem that needs acknowledgement: the pollution from burning any fuel is deadly to humans and must be stopped.  According to the World Bank,  the air pollution is responsible for 400 000 premature deaths in Europe alone. That is more than 1000 people every day.

There is a “simple” cure for both problems. We should stop burning fuels. Technologies for doing that exist today for all modes of transport.

Unfortunately the emission reductions that the politicians are setting goals on far in the future will not help, because no one is responsible. Voting for documents that postpone the problem and do not set yearly goals is easy, because those MEPs may be long gone by the time someone has to take responsibility for missed targets and tricking the system in 2025 or 2030.

We must act now for our health and the sustainability of human life on Earth.

In most countries the heavy goods vehicles are those freight vehicles with a gross mass greater than either 3.5 t or 4.5 t. The maximum allowed weights and dimensions of road freight vehicles are regulated and vary in each country. High Capacity Vehicles (HCVs) are vehicles that exceed the general weight and dimension limitations in the country and are usually operated in limited geographical areas or on specific routes in the country under a special regime. Therefore, a 5-axle vehicle that is 22m long with the mass of 44 tons could be considered a HCV in one country, but would fall into the general freight vehicles category in another country.

The distinguishing characteristic of HCVs from the business perspective is that they are able to transport a larger weight or/and volume of cargo in one trip than a conventional freight vehicle would. This leads to a range of implications for the transport operators, shippers of the goods, regulators and the society. Continue reading “Impacts of efficiency increases of heavy goods vehicles”

The ITF has just published the findings of the Roundtable on “Balancing Efficiency and Resilience in Multimodal Supply Chains” in the Chair’s Summary and Conclusions. In this report Prof. Alan McKinnon examines how efficiency and resilience can be balanced in the management of multi-modal supply chains. It investigates the trade-off between supply chain resilience and efficiency, the approaches to sustainability in supply chain management, innovation and technological development, collaboration and alliances and risk mitigation.

Continue reading “Resilience of supply chains”

Our paper on “ITS Applications for Higher Productivity of Road Freight Transport” was presented by Dr Tom Vöge at the HVTT15 symposium in Rotterdam last week.

Abstract: Recent years have shown ever increasing road freight volumes and it is forecast that the increase is likely to continue. At the same time investment in the road infrastructure is declining, which puts more stress on existing infrastructure that will have to handle the increasing road traffic volumes. This paper investigates how increasing the productivity of the road freight vehicles could be a part of the solution. And how the use of ITS technologies, including vehicle tracking, route planning and geo-fencing, could ensure political acceptability of these vehicles and minimise costly infrastructure upgrades. Some of the approaches that could be used to proceed with increasing weights and dimensions of road freight vehicles to improve their productivity are outlined.

You can download the paper here, and access the other papers from the symposium here.

I have sometimes wondered what happens when a drone hits an airplane wing, because with increasing number of recreational drones such events are very likely. There has been a lot of research done on bird impacts, which is a common occurrence.

A video from University of Dayton research institute shows what could happen to a general aviation aircraft wing if it hit a recreational drone in mid air.

USA TODAY writes about the best corridors for use of self-driving trucks. It is nice to see that the results of the study “Managing the Transition to Driverless Road Freight Transport” that I participated in are mentioned.

The documentary “Bikes vs. Cars” was screened this week at the OECD. It talks about how the previous decades of car-centric city planning have made our cities less liveable with large city areas consumed by road infrastructure that is exclusively designed for car use. The movie also shows the conflict and the pain that is associated with a push for a change. There is active resistance as well.

In my city there is a biking movement that advocates for more cycling and safer streets, and a lot of cities around the globe have such movements. A lot of work is already done on cycling safety, and valuable lessons can be learned from that. In the long run it will contribute better policies and more people changing their lifestyle: starting to cycle and living longer, healthier and happier lives.

I hope we can make cycling the “natural choice” for everybody, but that requires a lot of work both on the city infrastructure side, and on changing the mindset of the commuters. Having a car-free Sunday once a year is not enough. I wish we could have a car free day in the big cities every day, like in the town of Giethoorn.

You can watch the movie online here.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) and European Commission (EC) organised a workshop on electrofuels in coordination with the IEA Technology Collaboration Programmes (TCP) Bioenergy, Hydrogen, Clean and Efficient Combustion, Advanced Fuel Cells, and Advanced Motor Fuels as well as the Art Fuels Forum. The workshop was held in Brussels on Monday, 10 September 2018.

Electrofuels are gaseous or liquid fuels that are generated using electricity. The recent rapid cost reduction of renewable electricity has generated an interest in using renewable electricity for production of electrofuels to aid with decarbonising global economy which is of particular interest to transport.

My takeaways from the discussions are:

• Electrofuels are available for use today, but adoption is slow due to their high cost in comparison with fossil fuels.
• Although electrofuels provide a pathway to saving emissions in transport, these savings are much lower than direct us of electricity in transport can provide.
• Use of electrofuels requires approximately 6 times more electricity than battery electric vehicles require for the same “job”.
• The combustion of electrifuels still generates harmful emissions (carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, un-burnt hydrocarbons and particulate matter), which will limit or prevent their use in cities.

More information, including the programme and presentations, is available here.