Technologies for a modular vehicle concept used in passenger and goods transport

Autoren

Christian Ulrich, Horst E. Friedrich, Jürgen Weimer, Robert Hahn, Gerhard Kopp, Marco Münster, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)

Jahr

2019

Zusammenfassung

At the beginning of the year 2019, vehicles with diesel internal combustion engines (Euro 4 or older) have been banned from entering the city of Stuttgart. This is the temporary climax of current efforts to address traffic-induced air pollution. More than 500 sanctions in several European cities try to ban private cars from cities. Most likely, a lot of today car-owners will switch to public transport in the future, thus increasing the issue with peak-times. During these phases (primarily commuting) the public transport is overstrained. During “off-peak”-phases equipment like busses operate very inefficient or stand idle in the operators’ depot. New vehicle concepts are required to support the operators in on-peak-phases or revolutionize the transportation system completely.
However, not only the individual and public transport is affected by this transition, but also commercial traffic. This is in contrast to the steadily growing transport volume of goods. For instance, the market for parcel delivery grew by 96% from 2000 to 2017. New urban transportation systems to solve these issues are under development:
e.g. new city hubs with truck swap bodies, more small electric vehicles, or freight bicycles for the last mile. There are several indicators showing that future vehicle concepts should combine automated urban delivery and people transportation;
e.g. the European Commission is asking clearly for the new design of innovative shared, connected, cooperative and automated vehicle concepts for mobility of people and delivery of goods. On a vehicle-level, some players in the automotive market have already presented scalable and modular vehicle concepts.

Mitglieder-Login