The Global Context: A Growing Urgency to Push for Zero-Emission Mobility

A few years ago, the need for a transition to zero emission mobility was still debated. Today, the urgency is clear. Policy makers around the globe are turning ambitions into strict regulations.

According to UN data, road transport accounts for 10% of global emissions. On top of that, emissions in this sector are rising faster than in others. Zooming in on Europe, 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU come from transportation, according to McKinsey. The firm also projects that the mobility sector will likely be the second industry to reach carbon neutrality in Europe, possibly by 2045.

New Climate Pledges

Country-level commitments at the UN’s Climate Change Conference (COP 26) seem to support this forecast. The UK, for instance, committed to phase out the sales of new internal combustion engine cars by 2035. The Netherlands committed to do so by 2030. Norway announced that they’re aiming for 2025 - the most ambitious target yet. The issue is particularly urgent for companies that perform inner-city transport. More than 40 cities around the world, 24 of them in Europe, have begun to ban diesel and gasoline trucks in their city centers.

As the numbers show, the transition is inevitable

However, there are several challenges hindering the cost-effective transition to zero-emission operations. Mathematics and data can support you in making the right decisions and accelerating the transition. Let’s explore how with two examples: a strategic question and an operational puzzle.

The Strategic Question: Developing an Integral Investment Plan

With e-mobility technology advancing rapidly, the adoption of electric vehicles is picking up. McKinsey expects that the adoption of e-Trucks, across vehicle classes, will exceed 30% by 2030. Companies like Scania already offer 250 KM range trucks and promise future models with an even larger range and reduced charging times. In this period of rapid technological development, high capital investments need to be made, not just on the fleet. Charging infrastructure requirements are a common bottleneck. Industry leaders face questions like:

• Which zero-emission vehicles to buy and when?
• How much charging infrastructure investment is required?
• What would it cost to upgrade the electricity grid at our DC's, and how long would it take?
• Is it more efficient to have our own local renewable energy source?
• What changes in network and operating model are required or make the business model more profitable?

Organizations need to consider many different variables to minimize the risk of inefficient investments.

Scenario modelling is a valuable approach that can help you make complex decisions in the current situation, where technology is rapidly changing. Data and mathematics enable you to evaluate more diverse, more detailed, and more complex scenarios. This allows you to oversee all options and select the best fit for the situation. Making data-driven investment decisions reduces the risk of spending millions sub-optimally.

The Operational Puzzle: Smart Daily Planning of Zero-Emission Vehicles

Introducing or scaling up the adoption of zero-emission vehicles also has operational consequences. Many companies start with a pilot phase and just a few vehicles to gain experience in the operation of an electric fleet. A plan for a few vehicles can be done by hand, but the following questions increase the level of complexity:

• What is the required battery capacity for a trip?
• When should you charge each vehicle and for how long?
• How do emission zone regulations impact your plan?
• How can you accommodate last-minute changes when a vehicle’s battery capacity deviates from the plan?

Flexible planning

Flexible planning software empowers your team to prepare for these challenges. You need systems that take care of the additional complexity, create a smart and robust plan, and offer support if operational interventions are required. At ORTEC, we are expanding our suite of routing solutions to support this need, by using data and mathematics to evaluate all options and present only the relevant decisions to the planner. This enables planners to focus, and allows them to make the best decision in any situation.

For Theodoor Torn, Product Manager of ORTEC’s Routing products, moving to zero-emission transportation is an important personal and professional topic.

Although ORTEC’s products and services solve customer challenges with state-of-the-art technology, this should never be the start of the conversation. You can only build the best technological solution if you fully understand the challenge. For an innovative and rapidly developing topic as the transition to zero emission mobility, understanding the challenge can be a struggle in itself. That’s why we believe in the power of exploratory innovation workshops to start the conversation.

Given the urgency and complexity of these challenges, dealing with the transition to zero-emission mobility can be overwhelming. Frontrunners need to be careful: starting the transition without a sharp focus can result in unnecessarily high expenses due to ineffective or bad investments. How can you mitigate these risks? Identify the most urgent problems that are worth solving.

To support your organization in this process we recommend an exploratory innovation workshop. At ORTEC, we believe in the power of workshops as part of our innovation approach.

If prepared and executed correctly, workshops make your challenges concrete and identify potential solutions. In addition, they are a great way to get key stakeholders involved and engaged.

By bringing experts in sustainability, innovation, and logistics optimization together, the challenge can be addressed from different viewpoints. Everyone is able to contribute to the discussion and make their opinion heard. The result is an aligned view on the challenges at hand and a prioritized action plan supported by all the workshop participants.

According to Martijn Leenstra, Industry Lead Transportation and Storage, an explorative innovation workshop is the correct format to start discussing the topic of e-mobility. Recently, one of our customers participated in one of these workshops. They had not discussed electromobility adoption with their extended team before. Getting people from different departments in the same room was helpful to identify their key bottlenecks.

After the workshop, the customer’s team realized that:

• Charging infrastructure was their biggest challenge.
• The changes they need to make on their supply chain network can be incremental.
• They don’t need to change their existing technology stack overnight to adopt e-mobility.
• Besides developing technology, a personal and organizational change is needed.

Since the workshop ended with clear follow-up actions and action owners, the next steps could easily be initiated.

What’s holding you back from transitioning to zero-emission mobility? Please join us for a discussion on how to use data and mathematics to achieve your zero-emission mobility ambitions. Sign up for an innovation workshop to identify and align on your most urgent challenges and start creating an action plan.