Overview
What is FREILOT?
FREILOT is an EC-funded Pilot that started in April 2009 for a duration of 2 years and an half. Pilots Type B are specific funding instruments which focus is the validation at real scale or deployment of service.
Background
Transportation of goods is a key enabler for European economy to maintain its competitiveness. However, the same transportation brings other, less positive effects, such as CO2 emissions, contributing to the global greenhouse effect. Therefore, reduction of fuel consumption, CO2 emissions and emissions of other pollutants is one of the biggest challenges for the road transport today. The specific energy consumption of a goods vehicle in urban areas depends on many factors such as vehicle performance, driver behaviour, traffic control strategies and performance, weight of the vehicle and its load, urban geography and the road network, etc. Clearly, all of these aspects cannot be addressed by one single solution, (e.g. optimizing truck engine or providing better route guidance). An "efficient" truck is not as "efficient" if it needs to stop at every traffic light. Therefore, the FREILOT consortium has developed a new approach to deal with this issue where four of the above mentioned factors will be addressed:
- Traffic management (intersection control optimised for energy efficiency)
- Vehicle (Acceleration and adaptive speed limiters) management
- Driver (Enhanced "eco driving" support) management
- Fleet management (Real-time loading/ delivery space booking)
The FREILOT services aim to increase energy efficiency in road goods transport in urban areas:
- Energy efficiency optimised intersection control
- Adaptive acceleration and speed limiters
- Enhanced “green driving” support
- Real-time loading/delivery space booking
The basic idea is that cities will give priority at traffic lights, on certain roads or during certain times of the day, to the trucks that follow FREILOT scheme. The trucks eligible for this would be equipped with acceleration/speed limiters and eco-driving support for the drivers. In addition, a delivery space booking system will be made available for those trucks in order to avoid double parking or "drive around the block "behaviour. All four elements present in the pilot would be contributing to the reduction of the fuel consumption and reduction of emissions of CO2 and other pollutants. The main goal of the pilot is to show that up to 25% reduction of fuel consumption in urban areas can be achieved through FREILOT scheme.