Responsible for 8% of world carbon emissions, can trucking clean up its act?
They represent as much as 8% of total world carbon emissions. But despite best efforts, global emissions from road haulage are increasing along with our increased consumption – because virtually everything that we purchase arrives on a truck, even if its road trip is just part of its overall journey.
On the journey to net zero, the decarbonisation of road freight is a particularly challenging destination to reach. But that’s where a team led by a Cambridge professor of engineering comes in.
Professor David Cebon runs the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight (SRF), an ecosystem of academics, industry and policymakers which launched in 2012. The Centre researches a wide range of engineering, logistics and policy issues, from fundamental to applied, small to large scale and tactical to strategic.
Electrification of road freight is one current major issue the Centre is addressing on a number of fronts. It’s a complex problem requiring a multi-disciplinary approach, looking at logistics, engineering, policy and energy factors in tandem.
“We’re looking for sustainable solutions to decarbonise road freight for the planet, but those solutions need to be economically viable, or they won’t fly - and they have to be socially and politically acceptable. And of course time is of the essence,” Professor David Cebon, Dept of Engineering
The Centre is currently leading the Joint Operators Logistics Trial (JOLT), which is a collaborative project designed to explore how transport operators can move quickly and cost-effectively to an electric vehicle norm for heavy road freight operations in the UK.
The programme is based on two guiding principles, firstly that by sharing data with their collaborators, partners will maximise their learning; and secondly, that by sharing capital assets with their collaborators, partners will minimise their costs.
Read the full University of Cambridge article
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