Time-access regulations and vehicle restrictions are increasingly used, especially in western Europe, to improve social sustainability in urban areas. These regulations considerably affect the distribution process of retail chain organizations as well as the environmental burden. This paper studies the impact of governmental time windows, vehicle restrictions, and different retailers' logistical concepts on the financial and environmental performance of retailers. We use a case study with two cases that differ in their drop sizes as input for an experiment. The retailers provided all organizational, flow, and cost data of the distribution process between their distribution centers and their stores. We use these data to calculate the impacts of different scenarios on the retailers' financial and environmental performances based on a fractional factorial design in which urban policies and the retailers' logistical concepts are varied, using vehicle routing software. We test the propositions with a third case. We show that the cost impact of time windows is the largest for retailers who combine many deliveries in one vehicle round-trip. The cost increase due to vehicle restrictions is the largest for retailers whose round-trip lengths are restricted by vehicle capacity. Vehicle restrictions and time windows together do not increase a retailer's cost more than individually. Variations in delivery volume and store dispersion hardly influence the impact of urban policy and the retailer's logistical concept decisions. © 2009 INFORMS.
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Electric vehicles and renewable energy sources are collectively being developed as a synergetic implementation for smart grids. In this context, smart charging of electric vehicles and vehicle-to-grid technologies are seen as a way forward to achieve economic, technical and environmental benefits. The implementation of these technologies requires the cooperation of the end-electricity user, the electric vehicle owner, the system operator and policy makers. These stakeholders pursue different and sometime conflicting objectives. In this paper, the concept of multi-objective-techno-economic-environmental optimisation is proposed for scheduling electric vehicle charging/discharging. End user energy cost, battery degradation, grid interaction and CO2 emissions in the home micro-grid context are modelled and concurrently optimised for the first time while providing frequency regulation. The results from three case studies show that the proposed method reduces the energy cost, battery degradation, CO2 emissions and grid utilisation by 88.2%, 67%, 34% and 90% respectively, when compared to uncontrolled electric vehicle charging. Furthermore, with multiple optimal solutions, in order to achieve a 41.8% improvement in grid utilisation, the system operator needs to compensate the end electricity user and the electric vehicle owner for their incurred benefit loss of 27.34% and 9.7% respectively, to stimulate participation in energy services.
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Electric vehicles have penetrated the Dutch market, which increases the potential for decreased local emissions, the use and storage of sustainable energy, and the roll-out and use of electric car-sharing business models. This development also raises new potential issues such as increased electricity demand, a lack of social acceptance, and infrastructural challenges in the built environment. Relevant stakeholders, such as policymakers and service providers, need to align their values and prioritize these aspects. Our study investigates the prioritization of 11 Dutch decision-makers in the field of public electric vehicle charging. These decision-makers prioritized different indicators related to measurements (e.g., EV adoption rates or charge point profitability), organization (such as fast- or smart-charging), and developments (e.g., the development of mobility-service markets) using the best-worst method. The indicators within these categories were prioritized for three different scenario's in time. The results reveal that priorities will shift from EV adoption and roll-out of infrastructure to managing peak demand, using more sustainable charging techniques (such as V2G), and using sustainable energy towards 2030. Technological advancements and autonomous charging techniques will become more relevant in a later time period, around 2040. Environmental indicators (e.g., local emissions) were consistently valued low, whereas mobility indicators were valued differently across participants, indicating a lack of consensus. Smart charging was consistently valued higher than other charging techniques, independent of time period. The results also revealed that there are some distinct differences between the priorities of policymakers and service providers. Having a systematic overview of what aspects matter supports the policy discussion around EVs in the built environment.
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In the road transportation sector, CO2 emission target is set to reduce by at least 45% by 2030 as per the European Green Deal. Heavy Duty Vehicles contribute almost quarter of greenhouse gas emissions from road transport in Europe and drive majorly on fossil fuels. New emission restrictions creates a need for transition towards reduced emission targets. Also, increasing number of emission free zones within Europe, give rise to the need of hybridization within the truck and trailer community. Currently, in majority of the cases the trailer units do not possess any kind of drivetrain to support the truck. Trailers carry high loads, such that while accelerating, high power is needed. On the other hand, while braking the kinetic energy is lost, which otherwise could be recaptured. Thus, having a trailer with electric powertrain can support the truck during traction and can charge the battery during braking, helping in reducing the emissions and fuel consumption. Using the King-pin, the amount of support required by trailer can be determined, making it an independent trailer, thus requiring no modification on the truck. Given the heavy-duty environment in which the King-pin operates, the measurement design around it should be robust, compact and measure forces within certain accuracy level. Moreover, modification done to the King-pin is not apricated. These are also the challenges faced by V-Tron, a leading company in the field of services in mobility domain. The goal of this project is to design a smart King-pin, which is robust, compact and provides force component measurement within certain accuracy, to the independent e-trailer, without taking input from truck, and investigate the energy management system of the independent e-trailer to explore the charging options. As a result, this can help reduce the emissions and fuel consumption.
