Our Air and Road Freight Demonstrator is one of TransiT’s place-based demonstration projects, and spans two transport modes – air and road.
Location
This demonstrator focuses on East Midlands Airport in Leicestershire, England, and the freight operations there of global logistics group DHL.
East Midlands Airport is the UK’s largest dedicated express air freight hub, handling around 400,000 tonnes of cargo annually. It is the main UK logistics hub for DHL, UPS and FedEx.
DHL operates cargo planes at the airport, carrying European and intercontinental air freight, with its fleet of vans and trucks delivering to hubs across the UK.
DHL aircraft at East Midlands Airport. Photo by East Midlands Airport.
Partners
Our industry partners in the East Midlands Air and Road Freight Demonstrator are DHL and East Midlands Airport.
Our university partners in this demonstrator are Cranfield University, Heriot-Watt University and University of Glasgow.
What’s the challenge?
Our key research challenge at East Midlands is how to coordinate freight decarbonisation across both road and air transport, and how to reduce the risk and uncertainty of decarbonisation investment. This includes:
- How decarbonisation can be affordable and feasible for operators
- Building a roadmap for enabling the decarbonisation transition
- How to decarbonise ‘last mile’ deliveries to homes and businesses
A DHL courier and HGV. Photo courtesy of DHL Express.
How is the demonstrator addressing this?
Our Air and Road Freight Demonstrator is using digital twinning and associated technologies to understand these challenges and to test different decarbonisation scenarios that are integrated across both air and road freight operations.
Using sophisticated simulation tools, our progress so far includes:
Building an integrated simulation tool to represent the operational behaviour of an air–road logistics system
Delivering the ability to estimate how costs and emissions evolve over time, and to optimise the lowest cost pathway for decarbonisation
Building a detailed simulation of DHL’s long-haul road deliveries in the UK, focusing on the East Midlands
Identifying critical locations on major freight routes for electric truck charging stations
Analysing the cost and carbon impacts of different levels of sustainable fuel use and electrification across DHL’s air and road fleet
Landside aerial view of East Midlands Airport. Photo by East Midlands Airport.
What are the next steps?
Our next steps include:
- Further integrating our air and road freight simulations
- Further developing our cost of ownership analyses
- Evaluating potential bottlenecks that could carry hidden cost or risk
How can I find out more?
For more information on TransiT, you can browse our website or get in touch via the Contact Us page.
For industry engagement enquiries, you can contact our lead Co-Investigator for this demonstrator, John Erkoyuncu, or our stakeholder engagement manager Adam Kesby.