HITS 2024
HITS (Sustainable and Integrated Urban Transport System) is a cooperative initiative across a number of different industries that aims to develop efficient transport solutions and create cleaner and safer cities. The project participants include property owners, city authorities, municipalities, engineering and logistics companies and research institutions. The project is led by Scania and the project coordinator is CLOSER.
The main focus of HITS is on areas related to urban transport where the existing solutions are part of the problem. Some of the most important issues concern the policy for open sharing of transport data and also the amendment of legislation, primarily with the aim of developing new transport and vehicle services.
The HITS process
The challenges involved in the move towards a sustainable society will become increasingly complex and require greater cooperation between a range of different players. Digitalisation has opened up new business opportunities that represent a challenge to traditional structures. Increased urbanisation and the growing trend for online shopping are adding to the already serious problems of congestion and sustainability. Today's solutions form part of the problem.
During the first two years of the project, the focus will be on three key issues:
- How can effective, sustainable logistics flows be created in cities on the basis of new vehicle concepts and load carriers that allow for shared loads and return flows?
- How should smart, sustainable city hubs be designed? These will be both fixed and mobile solutions. In addition, what are the requirements for automation and what type of infrastructure is needed by the different hub concepts?
- How can digitalisation and data sharing in goods flow increase system effectiveness?
These questions will be resolved in five different work packages (WP), which are described below.
Vision & Mission
Vision
- Understanding the requirements and establishing the conditions for sustainable transport systems in cities.
Mission
- Taking a cooperative approach to improving system effectiveness in order to increase the efficiency of vehicle and infrastructure use in time and space.
- Understanding the design of services and vehicle solutions which are sustainable, scalable and implementable in the long-term.
- Proposing sustainable transport systems for cities.
Requirements of legislation
Background:
Digitalisation and automation are leading to major changes in the logistics industry. One requirement for improving flows and creating efficient logistics solutions is the ability to share data both vertically and horizontally.
However, sharing data between different players is often regarded as problematic and legislation is one of the obstacles that is frequently mentioned.
In many of the cases that were studied as part of HITS, laws and regulations function both as enablers and as barriers.
Objective:
To understand the legal aspects of dynamic vehicles and hubs for shared loads and to evaluate how the rights and duties in the logistics chain can accelerate data sharing and cooperation.
If deliveries are made with autonomous load carriers in future, how will the sender know whether the right items have reached the right customer? What will happen if the recipient discovers that the goods have been damaged in transit? Currently, one person hands over the goods to another and so they can discuss any issues immediately. But if the customer is not present and the goods are delivered by an autonomous vehicle, what will happen then? When is the legal responsibility transferred from the sender or supplier to the recipient?
This work package focuses on the legal issues in a world where goods are delivered and received without any human involvement. First and foremost, the existing laws and regulations are being evaluated to identify how they will function in a new situation. This also applies to laws which are currently being brought into effect. A lot of emphasis is being placed on data sharing, because this is a key issue for the project. Other important concerns include competition law and the increased processing of information about shared customers. It will be necessary to coordinate data so that logistics systems can function as effectively as possible.
In the other main area in the project – vehicles and logistics – there will be an investigation into how the physical handling of the packages will be affected and how and whether electric delivery notes can ensure that the right customer receives the right goods. It may be that many small load carriers with locked compartments will function as a moving warehouse where the recipients open the compartments and take out their goods as the load carrier passes by. How will returns be handled? And how can a system of this kind function on a large scale, for example in a shopping centre with a lot of stores on different floors?
The HITS project is investigating solutions that are environmentally sustainable. Today we can access data concerning the climate impact of specific goods and specific deliveries. Imagine if we could coordinate this data to identify the total climate impact so that we could find the best solution for the environment.
Work package leader: Kristina Andersson, RISE
Project partners
The project is led by Scania and the remaining partners are FTL, HAVI, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), LogTrade, Stockholm stad, Upphandling Södertörn, Catena, Dagab, Ericsson, Fabege, Göteborgs Universitet, IVL - Svenska Miljöinstitutet, Linköpings Universitet, Ragn-Sells AB, RISE and CLOSER at Lindholmen Science Park.
Do you want to know more about HITS?
