Especially in urban areas, a large proportion of air pollution can be attributed to road traffic. Thus, in many countries, bans are being discussed on diesel vehicles in inner cities. These diesel bans pose a severe threat to logistics service providers (LSPs) that are active in city logistics, since their fleets are based on diesel-powered vehicles. One solution for LSPs is to introduce battery-electric heavy-duty trucks (HDTs). However, this is rarely done at present, due to high investment costs of such trucks. In order to compensate these high investments, high mileages are required in order to benefit from such vehicles’ low operating costs. Implementing 24-hour delivery would increase the daily mileage of HDTs. Because of noise emission regulations, 24-hour delivery could only be performed using battery-electric HDTs. In this study, we explore whether using battery-electric HDTs for 24-hour delivery is economical for LSPs. We use data from a German LSP in food logistics, develop a system dynamics model, and integrate a total cost of ownership calculation along with an LSP and a retail store discrete choice model to determine whether 24-hour delivery with battery-electric HDTs is profitable for the LSP, and how it might be accepted and diffused among stores. We find that 24-hour delivery using battery-electric HDTs is immediately profitable. This is due to the almost 50% increase in the daily trip potential of battery-electric HDTs in comparison to diesel HDTs, which leads to a lower required total number of HDTs in the fleet. Lower transportation costs, increased delivery quality, and decreased risk lead to rapid adoption of 24-hour delivery among stores, while lower total costs of ownership (TCO) accelerate the adoption by the LSP. Diffusion through the fleet and stores takes only slightly longer than one HDT lifetime. Consequently, 24-hour delivery with battery-electric HDTs is a promising solution for innovative and sustainable city logistics.

Road freight transport is responsible for about one-third of road transport emissions and it is still growing. One solution to decarbonize this sector are electric trolley trucks powered by overhead lines. We compare electric trolley trucks to conventional diesel vehicles from a techno-economic perspective in Germany up to 2030. We find that an infrastructure set-up ordered by utilization of roads can be financed up to 2700 km with higher savings than cost. The impact on the energy system is lower than expected and the largest impacts are found in rural areas with highway intersections. Further fields of research are discussed.

Transport systems perform vital societal functions, but in their present state cannot be considered ‘sustainable’. Particular concerns in this respect include emissions, accidents, land use, noise and inaccessibility of amenities. Increasing attention is being focussed on hydrogen transport technologies as a possible means of achieving more sustainable transport. In this paper, we draw on expert stakeholder evidence and the wider literature to elucidate criteria for sustainable transport and determine the extent to which hydrogen transport technologies can meet these criteria. Our findings indicate that hydrogen could alleviate some of the problems in the transport sector associated with emissions and energy supply security. However, other transport problems are not mitigated – and some may even be exacerbated – by hydrogen use. Thus, we highlight the need for integrated transport policies and argue for more reflexive and inclusive societal debate about the impacts and beneficiaries of hydrogen transport technologies.

The transport sector has to be widely decarbonized by 2050 to reach the targets of the Paris Agreement. This can be performed with different drive trains and energy carriers. This paper explored four pathways to a carbon-free transport sector in Germany in 2050 with foci on electricity, hydrogen, synthetic methane, or liquid synthetic fuels. We used a transport demand model for future vehicle use and a simulation model for the determination of alternative fuel vehicle market shares. We found a large share of electric vehicles in all scenarios, even in the scenarios with a focus on other fuels. In all scenarios, the final energy consumption decreased significantly, most strongly when the focus was on electricity and almost one-third lower in primary energy demand compared with the other scenarios. A further decrease of energy demand is possible with an even faster adoption of electric vehicles, yet fuel cost then has to be even higher or electricity prices lower.