Freight Transport GHG Emission Reductions through Emerging Technologies 

Abstract
Freight movement accounts for a large and growing percentage of transportation sector CO2 emissions in the US, with surface freight reaching 25% of all transportation sector emissions in 2018. Trucks specifically account for 78% of all freight emissions and tractor trailers account for 63% of all freight truck fuel use, while 83% of truck ton-miles of freight delivered is for trips over 100 miles. This presentation will summarize a preliminary investigation into the potential for emerging technologies to reduce intercity and regional tractor-trailer freight GHG emissions.
Our investigation considered logistics improvements enabled by information and communications technologies (ICT) along with vehicle electrification and vehicle automation. The ICT strategies utilize real time tracking of vehicles and loads to better control the deployment of a network of transportation assets. Examples include co-loading, where less-than-truckload shipments are consolidated onto trailers heading to similar destinations, and empty backhaul minimization, where shipments are planned and schedules such that destinations of one shipment are close to the origin of the next. These strategies differ from improvements in vehicle efficiency in that they can improve the way in which existing vehicles are used, reducing total miles driven rather than directly improve per mile fuel efficiency. They also can be applied to the existing tractor-trailer stock, without expensive retrofits, which other vehicle efficiency technologies, such as automation and electrification, cannot. This makes the time profiles of technology adoption and emissions reductions of ICT strategies quite different from vehicle technology improvements and means that understanding cumulative emission reductions is important, rather than just measuring the efficiency gains at a given time.
Our preliminary results show that, in the short and medium term, ICT-based operational improvements could provide the majority of potential GHG reductions. Our results suggest that by 2035 GHG annual emissions per ton-mile for truck freight could be reduced by 40% or 77 million metric tons. Of this ICT enabled annual reductions were 41 metric tons, or 54%. By 2050 the ICT share of annual emissions reductions is reduced to 24% though the ICT share of cumulative reductions for that period is 38%. The results from this working paper suggest that while vehicle technology improvements, such as electrification and automation, have great long term potential for emission reductions, applying ICT-enabled logistical improvements is the fastest way to reduce emissions in the near- and medium-term. While both solutions are necessary we cannot afford to focus on only one of these solutions, to the exclusion of the others.