Sustainable Timber Transport—Economic Aspects of Aerodynamic Reconfiguration

There is a need to reduce fuel consumption, and thereby reduce CO2-emissions in all parts of the transport sector. It is also well known that aerodynamic resistance affects the fuel consumption in a major way. By improving the aerodynamics of the vehicles, the fuel consumption will also decrease. A...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2018-06, Vol.10 (6), p.1965
Main Authors: Johannes, Erik, Ekman, Petter, Huge-Brodin, Maria, Karlsson, Matts
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
Automotive parts
Carbon dioxide
Emissions
Energy efficiency
Fluid dynamics
Fuel consumption
Greenhouse gases
Investment
Logistics
Mapping
Operating costs
Reconfiguration
Simulation
Sustainability
Timber
Transportation
Trucks
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Summary:There is a need to reduce fuel consumption, and thereby reduce CO2-emissions in all parts of the transport sector. It is also well known that aerodynamic resistance affects the fuel consumption in a major way. By improving the aerodynamics of the vehicles, the fuel consumption will also decrease. A special type of transportation is that of timber, which is performed by specialized trucks with few alternative uses. This paper follows up on earlier papers concerning Swedish timber trucks where aerodynamic improvements for timber trucks were tested. By mapping the entire fleet of timber trucks in Sweden and investigating reduced fuel consumption of 2–10%, financial calculations were performed on how these improvements would affect the transport costs. Certain parameters are investigated, such as investment cost, extra changeover time and weight of installments. By combining these results with the mapping of the fleet, it can be seen under which circumstances these improvements would be sustainable. The results show that it is possible through aerodynamics to lower the transportation costs and make an investment plausible, with changeover time being the most important parameter. They also show that certain criteria for a reduced transportation cost already exist within the vehicle fleet today.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su10061965