Me also.
>>> Theo de Pencier <[log in to unmask]> 2/3/2011 9:26 >>>
Please remove me from your mailing list.
From:Technical, operational and economic aspects of road freight
transportation [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Dave Ryding (Product Dev)
Sent: 03 February 2011 08:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: FW: January 2011 Newsletter
And me please
From:Technical, operational and economic aspects of road freight
transportation [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Dionne Muir
Sent: 02 February 2011 23:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: January 2011 Newsletter
Please remove me from your mailing list.
From:Technical, operational and economic aspects of road freight
transportation [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Dahlberg Erik
Sent: Thursday, 3 February 2011 10:00 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: SV: January 2011 Newsletter
Hi John, hi all,
In the paper you refer to John, I studied the effects of otimizing the
specification based on the actual measured operation (topography, speed
profile, GTW etc). Comapred to a "standard specifiaction" I came up with
a 3,4 % fuel reduction due to changed total gearing (faster), less
powerful engine and some weight reduction (fuel efficiency measured in
litres per ton km goods) since some components where not needed or could
be replaced with less strong ones, thereby lighter. Optimized gearing
gives the highest contribution while the less powerful engine in this
case gives some contribution at the cost of a slightly lower average
speed. The speed on top of hills was sometimes simply lower. But as
Anders indicates, the difference in average speed hardly affect delivery
time.
Best regards
Erik Dahlberg, Scania
Från:Technical, operational and economic aspects of road freight
transportation [[log in to unmask]] för John de
Pont [[log in to unmask]]
Skickat: den 2 februari 2011 03:35
Till: [log in to unmask]
Ämne: Re: January 2011 Newsletter
Hi Anders,
I find your comments very interesting. They imply that the fuel
savings reported by Erik is his Melbourne paper from reducing engine
power were primarily the result of limiting the peak power available to
the driver during hill climbing, acceleration from rest etc. Is this
correct?
John
From:Technical, operational and economic aspects of road freight
transportation [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Lundström Anders A
Sent: Wednesday, 2 February 2011 11:27 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: SV: January 2011 Newsletter
John and all,
the rated power that you usually see on the cabs of heavy duty vehicles
is
not an adequate measure of actual fuel consumption, I am doubtful it
should be
there at the first place. Truck diesel engines in the range 200 hp and
upwards are
pretty similar in terms of gram of fuel per kWh at the flywheel, i.e.
similar thermal
efficiency. So it is really all about how the truck is used, in terms
of traction force
and speed.
A 40 or 60 tonnes combination has a power to mass ratio approximately
a factor of ten less than that of an ordinary car. In fact, most of us
"smooth" car
drivers could do very well with a 30 to 40 hp rated engined car. Will
we?
Smoot driving is by far the lowest hanging fruit for fuel consumption
reduction
for commercial vehicles as well as for passenger cars. Training, proper
instructions,
vehicle support functions have 10 to 20 % reduction potentials. There
is at least
anecdotical evidence that female commercial drivers are better fuel
savers as
well as safer and resulting in lower vehicle R&M costs. Research
needed?
I do not believe in the delivery time versus vehicle speed importance.
Nighttime
fruit and vegetables delivery from Hastings on the east coast of the NZ
North Island
to the distributers in Auckland is a matter of planning. Loading the
truck was so
late and slow that the driver could have started at least one hour
earlier. I know,
I was there standing waiting with my topography measuring gear.
Unloading, on
the other hand, was pretty quick and on time. Do not blame the
drivers.
All the best
Anders
Från:Technical, operational and economic aspects of road freight travey
nsportation [[log in to unmask]] för John de Pont
[[log in to unmask]]
Skickat: den 1 februari 2011 21:44
Till: [log in to unmask]
Ämne: Re: January 2011 Newsletter
Hi Pete,
I think the truck does need adequate power to undertake its task but
being over-powered uses additional fuel. The paper by Dahlberg referred
to in the original post reduced the engine power from 440hp to 400hp to
achieve the 3.4% fuel consumption reduction. I have no doubt that using
an under-powered engine where it is not possible to use fuel-efficient
driving techniques and still maintain adequate speed is also not
fuel-efficient.
John
From:Technical, operational and economic aspects of road freight
transportation [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of peter lynch
Sent: Tuesday, 1 February 2011 11:30 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: January 2011 Newsletter
Well, do more powerful trucks use more fuel? I spent years driving
totally underpowered vehicles that had to be pushed hard to make any
progress.
Regards Pete
--- On Tue, 1/2/11, Craig Silby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Craig Silby <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: January 2011 Newsletter
To: [log in to unmask]
Received: Tuesday, 1 February, 2011, 6:09 PM
Hi John, thanks for your discussion interest,
I am also from NZ and deal with heavy commercial vehicle purchasing and
specification daily. It is my experience the majority look at the front
end cost only of most items, which does not give a true picture of the
actual cost in most areas of their businesses. It is very difficult to
explain to the bean counters how; greater resources put into training
and vehicle selection now will potentially save resources over time vs
buying and hiring the cheapest on any given day.
David Potter (Axis Intermodal) explained very well at the last IRTENZ
conference that putting greater resource into training, health/safety
and vehicle selection/design paid many ongoing dividends to the DHL
business in the UK. The greatest area I see benefits are; the reduced
downtime for both staff and vehicles when training, health/safety and
good vehicle selection/design are implemented. Downtime would have to
be one of the most costly items a transport business faces.
Is there a web based forum application more suited to open discussions
such as this? it could be very useful
Regards,
Craig Silby
www.easytrucks.co.nz
On 1 February 2011 13:54, John de Pont <[log in to unmask] (
https://webaccess.scania.com/owa/,DanaInfo=webmail.scania.com,SSL+UrlBlockedError.aspx
)> wrote:
Dear IFRTT Forum subscriber
Greetings and best wishes for the New Year from the antipodes.
In the past this forum has been used to discuss technical issues of
interest to, at least, some of the subscribers. In recent times, apart
from the monthly newsletters, it has become primarily a bulletin board
for advertising conferences, courses and jobs. While this function is
important and useful I think it is a shame that the forum’s role in
promoting discussions and exchanges of ideas has declined. So to try to
promote some revival of the discussion function I thought I would
present a few ideas on an issue that subscribers may agree or disagree
with in the hope that you will express your views in responses via the
forum.
Current concerns about climate change are driving substantial efforts
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the most obvious step is to
improve fuel efficiency. Recent weather events in various part of the
world have heightened these concerns. Even if you don’t accept the
climate change argument it is indisputable that fossil fuels are a
finite resource and we owe it to future generations not to waste this
resource. Although the vehicle manufacturers are putting substantial
resources into technological solutions to address the issue, there are a
number of measures that can be implemented right now using existing
technology that can have a significant impact on fuel consumption.
For light vehicles the most obvious measure is downsizing the vehicles.
In New Zealand (and in many the other countries) the average size of
vehicles has steadily increased over the years and as a result the
benefits of the fuel efficiency gains achieved by the manufacturers have
been partially eroded. In New Zealand the average vehicle occupancy is
1.6 people and the maximum speed limit is 100km/h. Both of these
requirements are easily accommodated by the smallest cars on the market
so why are there so many larger cars? Safety is a factor. Although
many small cars have excellent safety performance, the barrier crash
tests effectively simulate a collision with an identical vehicle. If a
small car collides with a substantially larger car Newtonian mechanics
dictate that the occupants of the small car will experience greater
decelerations and are more likely to suffer injuries even if the safety
performance of the small car is inherently better than that of the large
car. If everybody else drives a small car you are much safer in a large
car. However, safety is not the only factor. The most popular large
car in New Zealand is available with either a V6 or a V8 engine. The
two vehicles are the same size and virtually identical in appearance but
the V8 option is 24% more powerful and uses nearly 26% more fuel. The
V6 option has more than enough power for the vehicle to perform its
functions yet a significant proportion of sales are for the V8 option.
Why?
With heavy commercial vehicles, paradoxically, both upsizing and
downsizing can improve fuel efficiency. Upsizing through increasing
vehicle size and weight limits reduces the amount of fuel required per
tonne-km of payload. Various initiatives are in progress in different
jurisdictions and we will not discuss these further here. However, for
a given transport task there are fuel efficiency opportunities in better
matching the engine power and transmission configuration to the
transport task. Erik Dahlberg presented a paper on this topic at our
last symposium in Melbourne with an example that showed a fuel
efficiency gain of 3.4% compared to the standard vehicle used for the
task. Generally this means downsizing the engine power. In New Zealand
the maximum allowable gross combination weight for general access is 44
tonnes and this has not changed for more than 20 years. The speed limit
for heavy vehicles is 90km/h. 20 years ago the typical maximum weight
combination had a 350-450hp engine. Today the typical engine power for
new 44 tonnes vehicles is 500-600hp. The New Zealand roading
environment is relatively hilly and so there are potential travel time
benefits from increased engine power. However, I believe these are
overstated as we will see in the next paragraph.
The other way in which substantial gains in fuel efficiency can be
achieved is through driver training. Last year the New Zealand Ministry
of Transport sponsored the development and introduction of a driver
training programme for fuel efficiency called SAFED-NZ (Safe and Fuel
Efficient Driving). This programme is based on a similar programme of
the same name developed in the UK and the introduction to New Zealand
involved getting one of the developers of the UK programme to come to
New Zealand to train a group of senior driving instructors. These
senior driving instructors will both deliver the programme and train
other driving instructors on how to deliver the programme. The basic
principles of the SAFED driving are very simple and one would think
obvious to any experienced driver. Yet even this very experienced group
of driver trainers achieved an average improvement in fuel efficiency of
5% from undertaking the course. This is based on before and after
measurements on a 40km test circuit. Significantly the average travel
time for the “after” circuit was 6% less than that on the “before”
circuit. That is, not only did the drivers use less fuel (and by
implication less average engine power) they also achieved a higher
average speed. This result is based on a very small sample and cannot
be generalised but it does suggest that the negative impacts on travel
time of a fuel efficient driving style and lower engine power will be
small.
Although these savings in fuel consumption may appear quite modest they
have a substantial impact on profitability. In New Zealand there is no
road tax on diesel (road user charges are collected separately) and so
fuel is relatively cheap. Nevertheless, depending on the type of
transport operation, fuel represents 15-20% of total costs. In
countries that collect road user charges through fuel tax it will be
significantly higher proportion (perhaps double). A 5% reduction in
fuel consumption can increase profits by about 1% of turnover. Trucking
in New Zealand is a very competitive business and many operators’
profits are less than 5% of turnover, hence this represents a 20%
increase in profit, which is very significant.
With an economic incentive of this magnitude we might expect an
immediate large scale uptake of these measures by the industry but this
has not happened. A number of operators here have seen the
opportunities and are implementing driver training for fuel efficiency
programmes and looking at vehicle selection policies but many others are
not. This raises the obvious question; why not? My personal view is
that they don’t believe the results apply to them. Specifically they
don’t believe that their drivers can reduce their fuel consumption
significantly; they don’t believe that fuel-efficient driving practices
will not substantially increase trip times; they don’t believe that
fitting lower-powered engines will save fuel; and they don’t believe
that using lower-powered engines will not substantially increase trip
times.
As I said at the outset one of my aims in writing this is to try to
stimulate a discussion. Some people may think I have got it all wrong.
Please say so and why. Others may think the situation in their country
is completely different. Again I am very interested to hear how it is
different and particularly why it is different.
Regards to you all,
John de Pont
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
----------------------------------------------------------------
Confidentiality note:
---------------------------------------------------------------
The information contained in this message is legally privileged and
confidential information intended only for the use of the individual or
entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination,
distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. lf you
have received this message in error, please notify us immediately and
return the original message to us at [log in to unmask]
Please note that the FTA is able to, and reserves the right to, monitor
e-mail communications passing through its network. This footnote also
confirms that Sophos Antivirus has swept this message for the presence
of computer viruses.
Freight Transport Association, Hermes House, St John's Road, Tunbridge
Wells, Kent TN4 9UZ
Telephone: (01892) 526171 Fax: (01892) 534989
Freight Transport Association Limited. Registered Office Hermes House,
St John's Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4 9UZ.
Registered in England Number 391957.
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***************************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology (
http://www.road-transport-technology.org/ )
***************************************************************
***********************************************************
The ROAD-TRANSPORT-TECHNOLOGY mailing list is published by
International Forum for Road Transport Technology
www.road-transport-technology.org
***********************************************************
