Criteria: A | Carbon emissions reduction using digital transformation
Black ash
that dusted
our windows.
Settled for
good on
clean
pure land.
Though simple solutions can be used for effective results, this post is about how technology can cut down carbon emissions in the freight trucking industry. You can think of Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba moving things around so that it reaches your doorstep tomorrow or by the end of the week, through hundreds and thousands of freight trucks.
How is digital transformation transforming and changing the ways technology can help rejuvenate a planet intoxicated by pollution and feverish with climate change?
One option is using data science and machine learning for creating advancements in logistics planning software. Which is being used for cutting loose ends, for better foresight, and risk prediction. With the intention of reducing and solving damage, as well as improved on-time delivery in the transportation sector. Vroom vroom.
Dear Patient Reader,
As one of the key sectors of the economy, the transportation sector accounts for about 21 percent of global emissions, with 73 percent coming from short journeys.[1] The freight industry makes up a big chunk of this.
A freight truck is a heavy-load, 18-wheels vehicle with one powerful engine. Which transports cargo between warehouses, factories, wholesalers, and retailers.[2] As an industry, freight trucking, which comes as LTL transport (less-than truckload/less than load) or FTL transport (full truck load), constitutes a number of processes from the office to on the road. All these processes involve the processing and churning of logistics, whose physical byproduct is carbon dioxide. That’s quite a lot of carbon being released into the air. Technology here can work to reduce inefficiencies found in computer systems in control of the manufacture to the shipment of products being made and moved in physical environments.
Taking from an article published by Forbes (linked below in P.S.), carbon emissions reduction becomes viable with the optimal integration of technology in the freight industry. “Origin, destination, weight, dimensions, commodity type, scheduling, and shipping cost are only a handful of the numerous shipping constraints that technology must account for. ”[3] A solution is shared truckload pools. Like car-pooling but with very large trucks transporting pallets instead of passengers. If you’re wondering what a pallet is, “A pallet is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane. A pallet is the structural foundation of a unit load, which allows handling and storage efficiencies.”[4] Shared truckload shipping negates the need for carbon-intensive terminals. “And, because shared truckload shipments only load and unload once, [a high percentage] of shipments arrive damage-free, [favouring the elimination of] the environmental harm of remanufacturing and reshipping duplicate goods.”[5]
“To create shared truckloads, their pooling algorithms sift through an enormous number of possible shipment permutations to find only those which are feasible to execute and [those that are] economically advantageous for all parties.”[6] Making this a supposedly favourable option, and a win-win situation.
“The machine learning-based product, FlockDirect, (which I’ll talk to you about in Part II of Cutting Back Carbon) pools less-than-truckload (LTL) freight consisting of a few pallets together to create full truckloads. This functions to optimise routes by pooling freight heading in the same direction so that trucks only stop at each drop-off, avoiding traditional terminals.”[7]
Have a good week ahead. 2022’s close.
P.S. Check out Using Machine Learning To Reduce Carbon Emissions In The Trucking Industry by Jennifer Kite-Powell for Forbes.
P.P.S. Next week's post is titled ‘Part II — Cutting Back Carbon, With Flock Freight’. Which is about shipping through green trucking solutions.
References
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/why-digitalization-is-the-key-to-exponential-climate-action/
[2] https://truckstop.com/blog/what-is-a-freight-truck/#:~:text=A%20freight%20truck%20transports%20things,factories%2C%20wholesalers%2C%20and%20retailers.
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2020/09/29/using-machine-learning-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-in-the-trucking-industry/?sh=627e6a4ea9e6
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallet
[5] "Ibid". [3]
[6] "Ibid". [3]
[7] "Ibid". [3]
留言