Transportation – Page 43 – Things Are Good

A Better Truck for Safer Driving

Trucks kill a lot a cyclists and that’s a problem. We’ve looked at ways we can make trucks more efficient, now London Cycling Campaign has found ways to make trucks safer. They have modified the layout of a truck to allow the driver to see more of the road – in particular cyclists.

London Cycling Campaign haulage expert and former lorry driver Charlie Lloyd said:

â€œOur Safer Urban Lorry design is a challenge to the construction industry to use vehicles that help reduce the terrible number of people on bikes and on foot who are killed by lorries.

â€œThe restricted view from the cab of many of todayâ€™s construction lorries means the driver often has little or no idea who or what is in their immediate vicinity, which is totally unacceptable

A More Efficient Truck for Shipping

A new SuperTruck is a huge improvement over current long-haul trucks that ship tonnes of goods around North America. The USA’s Department of Energy wanted to make trucks 50% more efficient through various solutions, even a marginal increase can lower gas consumption and thus pass on savings to a consumer.

The demonstration SuperTruck made a whole swath of changes (as can be seen in the image above) to make their truck way better than existing fleets. All their changes add up to a 61% improvement in freight efficiency!

This was achieved without anything too exotic: The ‘SuperTruck’ uses a higher-efficiency engine and an aerodynamic tractor-trailer that significantly reduces drag combined with a waste heat recovery system, electronic controls that use route information to optimize fuel use, low-rolling resistance tires, and weight reductions all around.

Wirelessly Charging Electric Buses to be Tested

The city of Mannheim will be testing a new kind of electric bus which can be charged wirelessly. Bombardier, who makes the buses, is hoping to prove that using electric buses can be cheaper and more efficient than current models. Every time the bus stops to pickup or drop off passengers a device beneath the street will use wireless power to recharge batteries on the bus.

Two buses outfitted with special batteries will get charged by underground induction energy transfer stations each time they stop along the route.

Bombardier spokesman Marc Laforge said the technology could be attractive for governments looking to electrifying transit systems without installing overhead wires.

Airships Might Help Connect Northern Canada

The Canadian government has released a report that says that airships could be the most efficient way to bring needed goods to remote areas of northern Canada. Plus, the airships can be used for reacting to natural disasters because the airships can carry a lot of tonnage but don’t require complicated infrastructure.

One company, Solar Ships, is looking to bid on transporting goods because their solution of a hybrid airship is more cost efficient than currently used methods.

Solar Ships is seeking to partially power the blimps using the sun, saying in a statement it will use the funds to keep developing the technology.
The firm says it can move cargo to remote areas in Ontario for $1.20 per ton/per kilometre, compared with truck transportation costs of $10 per ton/per kilometre.
Both the committeeâ€™s report and the announcement of funding are important steps, Prentice said.
â€œThis isnâ€™t quite on the scale of building the Canadian Pacific Railway, but as far as the North goes it is,â€ Prentice said.
â€œBecause if we donâ€™t have a transportation solution for the North, weâ€™ll never solve the problems of the North.â€
The recommendation to take a closer look at airships is one of several made by the transportation committee in a report released this week studying new ways to get goods and people moved across Canada.

Asphalt That Fixes Its Own Potholes

Asphalt covers a lot of world and is worth billions of dollars and the entire industries rely on this material to make roads to transport goods. The catch is, this material that we use to make our roads is bad for the environment and requires a lot of maintenance. Filling potholes and similar road damage takes time, labour, and of course, even more asphalt.

In Germany some researchers have found a way to make asphalt self-repairing meaning that the road can last a lot longer before patching is required and will require less maintenance!