Topic 4: Digitalization and digital technologies for sustainable vehicle and transport solutions, and transportation systems

The design of sustainable vehicle and transport solutions, as well as respective product and transportation system transformation requires high-quality data for decision support. Such life cycle data is currently rather scarce due to data gaps in the value chains. In this context, digitalization and digital technologies could support the transfer, provision and analysis of data needed to support sustainable vehicle designs, support design trade-off decision, or identification of appropriate circular economy strategies. This topic places the focus on exploring how digital technologies can bridge data gaps along value chains, but also how they can support existing and new methods for incorporating sustainability into vehicle and transport solutions.

This topic invites to submit contributions that aim to explore the potential of digitalization and respective technologies to enable sustainable and circular vehicle and transport solutions. Such potentials range from facilitating data collection for supporting sustainability management decisions, advancing existing and developing new (data-driven) sustainability assessment methods, to fostering greater collaboration among transport ecosystem actors. Next to potentials, also contributions are welcome to explore possible challenges and drawbacks that are correlated to digital technology deployment for more sustainable transport and transportation systems.

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

1. How can digitalization and digital technologies facilitate more sustainable (i.e., environmental and social sustainability) and circular vehicle and transport solutions by, for instance, supporting sustainable supply chain management, or end-of-(first)-life vehicle management? 

2. How can digitalization and digital technologies (e.g., 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. 

3. How can digitalization and digital technologies support the pursuit of circularity strategies, such as repair, (predictive) maintenance, repurposing, or recycling, to support the circular transition of the transport sector?  

4. How can digitalization and digital technologies (particularly data sciences approaches) enable privacy-preserving product life cycle data exchange within the transport ecosystem and along respective value chains? 

5. What is the role of digital technologies and digital tools (e.g., the digital product passport) to foster and enhance collaboration among transport ecosystem actors and stakeholders?  

6. What is the role of consumers in a digital and circular transport sector, and how can digital technologies shape consumer perceptions and behaviors with respect to vehicle purchasing decisions as well as behaviors of sustainable mobility modes? 

7. How can digital technologies support the advancement of existing sustainability management methods (e.g., risk assessment, integrated assessment models, life cycle (sustainability) assessment and optimization, circularity assessment, or strategic environmental assessment), as well as the development of new data-driven sustainability methods?  

8. How can digital technologies support the ESG data collection and respective due diligence and information disclosure measures (cf., EU taxonomy, Corporate Due Diligence Directive, Corporate Sustainability Reporting directive) in a transport sector context? 

9. What are potential challenges and barriers for implementing digital technologies for more sustainable vehicle and transport solutions? What are the environmental (e.g., energy consumption of data centres) and social sustainability impacts (e.g., ethical questions regarding user data exploitation) of digital technologies over their lifetime in this context?  

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.