Prediction of energy consumption in road transport by simulation of the vehicle’s field of application and its performance

This paper describes work done at Fraunhofer ITWM as part of the project LIFE Ecotravid, partially funded by the European Union (LIFE18 CCM/FR/001095), to reduce the energy needed during execution of heavy-duty road transport tasks. We mostly consider Diesel-driven trucks, which will be running for still some time. However, the approach also applies to vehicles with alternative drivetrains. We analyze real transport missions with respect to energy saving potentials by replacing the actual routes with consumption-optimized routes. The latter are found by a simulation-based two-step procedure, where we use road and vehicle properties in detailed speed and consumption simulations. We apply the method to real transport tasks and report the saving potentials found by simulation and those verified by real measurements. In its main part, the paper transfers the approach to other applications, namely hub-to-hub and hub-to-supermarket delivery as well as fuel distribution in a wider region. We simulate the corresponding routes by carefully modelling the missions for the three scenarios. Further, we describe how the approach might be extended towards E-mobility. A case study of an electrified axle in a trailer with a cooling unit (CU) is considered and the saving potential of empowering the CU with recuperated electric energy instead of Diesel is explored.