A System-of-Systems Framework for Total Cost of Ownership in Road-Cargo Transport

Journal article, 2026

Road-cargo transport is a major and growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the transition from diesel to low-emission solutions requires a system perspective that goes beyond technology substitution. Existing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and road-cargo decarbonisation studies often treat vehicles, infrastructure, operations, and policy in isolation, limiting their ability to capture feedbacks, cross-domain effects, and the decision context of transport providers and buyers. This paper proposes a System-of-Systems (SoS) framing for TCO in road-cargo and introduces nine interacting domains as an analytical classification to structure TCO-relevant factors and crossdomain couplings: economic, vehicle, infrastructure, operations, regulatory, environmental, social, exogenous, and emerging and innovation technology. Drawing on SoS literature and road-cargo decarbonization reviews, these domains are defined and then used as a classification scheme to identify and structure key TCO-relevant factors. The resulting domain descriptions and factor tables provide a first, non-exhaustive, decision-oriented overview of how ownership costs emerge from interactions across the road-cargo system, rather than from isolated cost items. The framework is intended as the conceptual backbone for subsequent dynamic SoS models that can support road-cargo transport providers, transport buyers, and policy makers in assessing the economic implications of alternative technologies, operational concepts, and policy instruments, and in designing solutions that improve the sustainability of road-cargo while reflecting real-world cost dynamics.