TRANSPORT EFFICIENCY OF DELIVERY TRUCKS: A STUDY OF COUPLING VEHICLE DESIGN AND TRANSPORT SYSTEM THROUGH FUNCTIONAL MODELLING AND OPTIMISATION.

To enable the emergence of new and efficient vehicle design from the transport system perspective, a formulation of a multifunctional vehicle-transport design optimisation problem is presented. System- wide measures of transportation and vehicle efficiency measures are conceptually considered in an integrative design approach to drive the transport solutions towards more resource-efficient and eventually more sustainable solutions. Considered efficiency measures associated with the system-wide aspect are namely, productivity and service efficiency, and measures associated with vehicle attributes are namely mass and shape efficiency. The conflicting nature of these measures is balanced using optimisation methodologies through multiple transportation scenarios with varying transport demand and deterministic drive cycles. The obtained optimisation results demonstrated that there is a strong interconnectivity between the vehicle's overall configuration and transportation aspects. Thus, conceptually demonstrating how the inclusion of various transport-vehicle efficiency measures simultaneously in an integrative design approach during the early vehicle design may yield a more efficient and better overall system performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]