New conditions for optimized freight transport solutions

Research Project, 2023 – 2026

Electrification of road-freight transport will play a key role in the transition to net-zero carbon emissions. In this project, which is a collaboration between the Volvo Group and Chalmers, we explore new conditions for optimised electrified road-freight transport. The focus is on how a fleet of trucks can productively work together and efficiently interact with other stakeholders, for example a charging infrastructure. The end goal is that the trucks should all work as one system that aligns seamlessly with its environment.
 
By studying the interplay between ‘open’ business systems involving many actors and ‘closed’ systems of vehicle fleets and other resources we aim at increasing the knowledge of new principles for business-oriented transport planning optimization. Research questions include how transport planning can be modelled and solved in different situations (closed systems), as well as how solutions to these problems relate to the business network contexts of the actors involved (open systems). It also includes questions related to how the business network contexts of the actors involved (open systems) affect the type of transport planning optimization problems that are relevant to solve (closed systems). The interdisciplinary approach chosen for this project contributes to problematize and advance optimization approaches to transport planning problems as well as to scrutinise these problems and solutions in a real-world business context.