ENROUTE - Efficient Network for Road-freight Optimisation, Utilisation, and Transfer of Energy
ENROUTE is a project co-funded by Innovate UK on sharing live data about electric commercial vehicle movements, from fleet operators to charger operators, to facilitate optimum schedules for charging.
PARTNERS
Syselek is a leading developer of transport-related electronic systems, and developer of charging infrastructure solutions for electric commercial vehicles.
Welch’s Transport is an award-winning logistics company with national service capability, as well as being an operator of electric HGVs and depot-based charging equipment.
Cambridge University is a world leading university and host to the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight, undertaking research to improve the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of road freight.
PROJECT SCOPE
Overview
Electric HGVs will be important for decarbonisation in the freight and logistics industry. A small number of fleet operators are piloting electric HGVs and building up charging infrastructure at their depots.
Public funding will help establish charging infrastructure at truck stops and motorway services, but 90% of electric HGV charging is expected to take place at depots or destinations, which will be the responsibility of fleet operators and their customers and suppliers.
Challenge
Charging infrastructure owners seek high utilisation, meanwhile fleet operators seek to minimise dwell time. Live data sharing in transient conditions across the freight value chain, between fleet operators and charger owners, will be the enabler to optimise charger usage. Concerns about sharing live data between organisations must be addressed.
Objectives
Our focus in this project is to show the value of live data sharing across the freight value chain for electric HGV charging, and address key data sharing barriers, such as commercial sensitivity and privacy concerns, which must be overcome. Our project’s objectives are:
1. Understand the value chain, data, sharing opportunities, and barriers,
Identify the right data to share, standardised data format, and regulatory risks,
Anonymisation to protect the privacy and security of commercially sensitive operations,
2. Produce a business case for data sharing, with costs, benefits, and incentives,
3. Demonstrate a proof-of-concept data sharing solution, addressing key barriers identified.
The outcome will provide confidence for charging infrastructure investment decisions and accelerate adoption of electric HGVs as a means to freight and logistics decarbonisation.
WORK PACKAGES
WP1: Business case addresses the economic viability, value chain mapping, cost benefit assessment, and business case for fleet and charger operators.
WP2: Data definition addresses the potentially available data and the necessary data, underlaying assumptions, and data sharing risks.
WP3: Data sharing architecture addresses the system design for data ingress, analysis, and processing, as well as data format standards, privacy, and authentication approaches.
WP4: Platform proof-of-concept provides an initial working POC, with data system interfaces, as a cloud application.
WP5: Field trial collects and evaluates performance data from field tests to assess the data sharing solution.
TIMING
Project start May 2024
Project duration 9 months
FUNDING
Innovate UK project #10109497: The ENROUTE project is one of the Net Zero Mobility Feasibility Studies for Optimal Data Exchange, part of the Net Zero Mobility Programme funded by DfT and delivered by Innovate UK, to advance digital technologies that enable the future movement of people and goods.
CONTACT
The project team welcomes contact from anyone interested in the project, or the wider technical and economic topics of electric commercial vehicles, shared charging infrastructure, fleet operations and charger operations, charging schedules, or data sharing.