The measurement campaign of LIFE’s ECOTRAVID pilot is in full swing, with nearly all of the 40 trucks and trailers involved in the project and operated by transportation and logistics expert Samat now fitted with their onboard terminals.
This pilot measurement phase will help build the Virtual Measurement Campaign (VMC) software developed by Fraunhofer ITWM, which will be integrated into the fleet management platform of project coordinator CLS.
The aim of the VMC software is to calculate and suggest the most fuel-efficient and cost-effective routes for any specific transport mission. To achieve this, it takes into account realistic vehicle models for trucks/trailers and the influence of the driver. Its algorithms also use real-world data, including the course of the road itself, plus influencing factors such as topography and traffic. The simulations enable detailed calculations of consumption and energy losses for specific transport missions, including the analysis of different types of losses (e.g. air, rolling and gradient resistance).
Specific embedded software has been developed and integrated into two different types of terminals – one connected to each truck FMS and one on each trailer EBS– which have been constantly transmitting high-frequency (up to 1 sec) data back to project HQ ever since the pilot’s launch at the start of 2020.This “real-life data” on public roads is used to feed the VMC in order to verify the new models and fine-tune the algorithms and provide a series of route alternatives. In addition to existing distance and time factors, these route proposals are ranked according to fuel consumption and green criteria.
Once the measurement campaign is complete, the project will move on to the demonstration phase, with Samat’s operations manager using the VMC-enhanced system for all daily route planning in order to assess and demonstrate its efficacy. The overall aim of this EU-backed project is to provide a tool that will significantly reduce emissions from Europe’s vital road haulage industry.
The LIFE ECOTRAVID project is co-financed by the financial instrument of the European Union, LIFE.
