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Long distance trucking is a grossly inefficient way to move goods from one place to another. But the state of Hesse in Germany is about to embark on a trial which could help improve that inefficiency considerably. As business Green reports, 10 km of highway in Hesse will soon be equipped with overhead charging cables to be used by hybrid trucks to run on electricity when juice is available, and to switch back to diesel when it's not. It's all part of Siemens' eHighway initiative which the company claims would double energy efficiency compared running on gas, and slash emissions even more if those cables are charged from renewables.
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German State to Electrify 10km of Highway for Overhead Charging of Trucks
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday August 17 2017, @01:46AM (4 children)
So, trucks are 20% less efficient than trains for carrying bulk goods long distances. Howzabout you build a train spur to my local Walmart, which is 20 miles away from the nearest train spur? Keep in mind that 20 miles away is covered in suburbia, apartments, and freeways trucks can run on.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:14AM (3 children)
Bulk frieght should go by rail to "local" dsitribution centres
local can mean 20, 30, or. In regional areas, even larger distances.
Double and triple trailer trucks should not need to be on the road.
Smaller trucks, doing fewer miles, using trains for big distances would be the most efficient way, but requres a level of cooperation that most companies (and governments) cannot manage, alas.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:52AM (2 children)
> Bulk frieght should go by rail..
For many years I've been proposing that some trains should be dedicated to drive-on flat bed rolling stock. Truckers can just drive on, be locked in place (with standardized clamps) and then go to sleep in their sleeper cab...while they travel the long distance part of their run on a train. At the end, drive off the train and to the final destination. What's not to like? Fuel savings, truckers have more sleep time (safer) and less trucks on the interstates (much less road damage).
With a smart phone reservation system and large platforms so the trains can be loaded/unloaded quickly, this might actually speed up longer distance runs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @03:36AM (1 child)
So haul the mass of the freight and the inert mass of the fueled tractor? And a driver with no way to stretch her legs every few hours?
I'll bet we could construct large buildings in a spoke and hub system that trucks could unload and pick up from. These hubs could then load the freight into box cars and on to flatbed cars for transportation to another hub. They would need an organizational system, possibly based on wooden mats of a sort that the freight units for different spoke destinations could be shrunk-wrap to and labeled with some sort of machine-readable identification.
We could call these hubs "cargohouses."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:07AM
> So haul the mass of the freight and the inert mass of the fueled tractor?
Yes. As long as the trailer is fairly full, my guess (no data) is that this will still improve the total system efficiency. In part because road damage is so expensive to repair (but not normally accounted for in the system cost). Also, note that I proposed an efficient scheduling system, so that the truckers drive on when they are ready for a sleep cycle anyway.
> And a driver with no way to stretch her legs every few hours?
If the trucks drive on and off on one side, then the special flat bed rail cars could have an enclosed walkway on the other side for the drivers to walk the length of the train, go to a dining car, walk to each others sleepers to hookup, etc. Good idea!