Transport Technologies

1. The Technologies Introduction

The threat of increasingly unsustainable transportation systems in the large cities of

the world comes from the interaction between growing demand for transportation

services and the environmental impact of transportation. Demand tends to grow at a

geometric rate, while the environmental capacity (at given technologies) to handle

such growth is fixed. Technology offers enormous possibilities for change in the

longer run, but unless harnessed to the goal of sustainability, may aggravate some

problems (such as traffic congestion) while in the process of fixing others (reducing

emissions per road vehicle kilometre).

A number of key influences are driving a process of accelerating technological change

in land transportation. Traffic congestion is encouraging new technologies to be

adopted in traffic management. Concerns about traffic safety are leading to a

consideration of new technologies, particularly road design and automated vehicle

control. The availability and price of crude oil is encouraging research and

development on fuel economy, the use of alternative fuels, and the development of

fuel cell-powered engines. Air pollution problems in urban areas are encouraging the

development of technologies to reduce harmful emissions, and concerns about global

warming are further adding to the search for low-emission transportation. These

concerns are also reflected in the adoption of new regulatory policies by

governments in such areas as fuel standards and fuel economy standards for new

motor vehicles.

Significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved by increasing the

energy efficiency of transportation equipment. However, increasing energy efficiency

of the transportation system takes time, typically 15 years or more between efficiency

gains in new equipment and comparable efficiency gains for the entire fleet of

transportation vehicles.

Logistics is the planning, organisation, management, execution and control of freight transport operations. It integrates individual transport acts to door-to-door supply chains, determining the efficiency of freight transport.
Logistics has also become an industry in its own right, enjoying sustained growth over the past years. Several of the leading companies world-wide are European.
With ever increasing volumes in freight transport, logistics needs to find solutions to the emerging consequences of this growth. In economic terms, these relate to the costs incurred through congestion, labour shortages and to the dependency on fossil fuels. Regarding the environmental and social dimensions the challenge lies in reducing freight transport's negative impacts on the natural and social habitats. Logistics service providers need to help develop solutions to these issues.
In 2006, the European Commission reformulated its policy on freight transport logistics, taking up the issues highlighted above and describing how to take forward work to address these. The Communication is being followed up through a Logistics Action Plan that was adopted in October 2007, as part of a package of measures. It suggests a range of concrete actions in priority areas such as electronic information on freight, training and quality indicators, simplification of processes, vehicle sizes and loading units, urban transport and long-distance corridors. The Action Plan will determine the Commission's work on logistics over the medium term.
In parallel to these initiatives, the European Commission launched a call to industry and interested parties for the identification of obstacles to the efficient provision of logistics services, the so-called bottleneck exercise. As a result of the high response rate it has been decided to make this an on-going process, and reported bottlenecks are being addressed in a collaborative effort with industry.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16