Cambridge fronts new Centre for Sustainable Road Freight Transport 20 November 2012

A new Centre for Sustainable Road Freight Transport has been established at Cambridge University and Heriot-Watt University, with £5.8 million of funding for the first five years.

The EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) is providing £4.4 million of funds, while the rest comes from a new consortium of key transport industry companies.

These include freight operators such as John Lewis, Tesco, DHL and Wincanton, along with vehicle industry partners, including Volvo, Goodyear and Firestone. These will be tasked with setting the research agenda and spearheading adoption of its results.

Aims of the new engineering centre are to: research the sustainability of road freight transport from micro- to macro-level perspectives; develop innovative technical and operational solutions; and work to meet government emissions reduction targets – mapping ways to provide an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.

"The only way to achieve very deep reductions in CO2 emissions from the road freight sector is to combine highly-focussed vehicle engineering with systematic improvements to freight distribution systems," comments Professor David Cebon, director of the Cambridge Vehicle Dynamics Consortium (CVDC) and the first director of the new centre.

"We are delighted to be collaborating with the UK's foremost freight logistics research centre, at Heriot-Watt University, and with a set of truly excellent industrial partners," adds Cebon.

For him, much of the purpose of the new centre is around optimising vehicles in parallel with logistics.

He cites examples of brining technology and logistics together as including: bearing down on costly empty running; routing transport operations to minimise traffic congestion; reorganising freight distribution in favour of fewer, larger and more efficient vehicles.

"When a vehicle delivers its freight and returns to base empty, the fuel used on the return trip serves no useful freight transport purpose," explains Cebon. "If a vehicle comes home empty, the fuel consumption per freight task is increased by 70%."

And he continues: "When freight is taken off of a large articulated truck and put onto two smaller trucks, 40% more fuel is used to deliver that freight. Smaller trucks are currently used, because they are easier to manoeuvre in city streets. "

His point: work by the centre to improve large vehicles, in terms of manoeuvrability in city streets alongside safety, could substantially reduce fuel consumption and sustainability.

The new centre is the first major success of Cambridge Engineering Department's new research theme, entitled 'Energy Transport and Urban Infrastructure'.

Lead investigators here at Cambridge University's Department of Engineering are: Professor Holger Babinsky (vehicle aerodynamics); Dr Adam Boies (dual fuels, vehicle emissions and logistics modelling); Professor David Cebon (heavy vehicles dynamics, safety and fuel consumption); Dr David Cole (driver vehicle interaction and human factors); Professor Nick Collings (fuel and emissions); Professor Nick Kingsbury (traffic congestion monitoring and prediction); and Dr Michael Sutcliffe (lightweight composite vehicles).

The Heriot-Watt team comprsies: Professor Tooraj Jamasb (energy economics, regulation, policy and technology); Dr Andrew Palmer (logistics modelling and network design, collaboration in supply chain networks); Dr Maja Piecyk (green logistics, carbon foot-printing of supply chain networks, transport modelling); and Dr Guy Walker (human factors, transport systems and driver behaviour).

Author
Brian Tinham

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