Topic 3: Transforming the transportation system

Vehicles and transport solutions form part of the wider transportation and societal systems. As such systems are dedicated to moving persons or goods, their constitution (e.g., transport mode, infrastructure or guideways, operation plans) have great implications regarding sustainability impacts. This topic explores how transport modes can become more sustainable to enable the transformation towards more sustainable transportation systems. This concerns, for instance, considering powertrain electrification, e-fuel deployment or hydrogen vehicles. As such systems are characterized by high complexity, the investigation of potential rebound effects, as well as overcoming structural barriers for system change is of interest.  

This topic invites to submit contributions that aim to explore how to enable a transformation of today’s transport system to become more sustainable (cost efficient, energy efficient and environmentally friendly). It involves all types of transport modes (road vehicles, rail vehicles, airplanes, active mobility etc.). 

Contributions shall focus on, but it are not limited to, the following research questions and topics: 

  1. How can the operation of transports be changed in order for the transport system to be more sustainable? (transport efficiency, new technical solutions and control strategies to reduced energy consumption during operation as well as emission mitigation emissions (CO2/noise/particles etc) 
  1. What barriers and opportunities (e.g. social, economical, organisational, competence) are there in order to transfer to more sustainable transport options, and how can these be mitigated or used as a driver? (autonomous vehicles – potential to make use of time during transport but risk that the people don’t feel safe ( potential solution remote driving) or become motion sick, requirements in the infrastructure, high speed trains).  
  1. What new innovative more sustainable transport solutions are there to transport goods or people?  
  1. How can big data and AI be used to transform the operation or design of vehicles/transports by for example identifying where large problems with sound emissions/tyre wear/rail wear/ turning of engines etc. 
  1. How can the transportation systems be transformed to enable alternate transport modes, as well as active mobility and handle rebound effects? 
  1. How to anticipate consequences, risk and cost to implement large infrastructure changes for a sustainable transport transformation? 
  1. How to handle/ speed up the implementation of new innovative solutions in transport modes with long lifetime on market? (Ownership of products) 

Given the nature of these topics, a wide variety of studies are invited, ranging from the proposition of technical and methodological concepts and prototypes over single and multiple-case studies of the implementation of different digital technologies , to deductive empirical studies investigating antecedents and potential effects on all system levels.