FREILOT

Description

Freilot is a large European pilot project, here new automotive and traffic technologies are being developed and tested that should lead to significant reductions in fuel and CO2 emissions in freight traffic in urban areas.
The goal is ultimately to reduce the energy consumption and emissions of freight traffic in cities by 25%. This happens, for example, by influencing traffic lights by the trucks and in-car advice during the journey to the driver to drive as efficiently as possible.

Objectives

Better flow. Technology in traffic lights recognizes trucks with a "freilot system", which gives the lorry green light and a better flow.
Energy-efficient driving. The system in the lorry advises the driver about the speed and indicates when to shift up or down to drive energy efficiently.
Increase safety through speed restriction. Via a signal to the truck, the speed can be limited, so that the maximum speed cannot be exceeded.
Parking reservation. With the system, a driver can reserve a parking space for loading and unloading from a distance, giving him a good parking space in a busy city. This saves valuable time
Parking reservation. With the system, a driver can reserve a parking space for loading and unloading from a distance, giving him a good parking space in a busy city. This saves valuable time

Implementation plan

Project Input

On board vehicle equipment determining real time vehicles speed, acceleration/gear shifting, location and path planning according to the real time congestion.
Real time information sharing- the system that has to be created should react with real time data which maybe traffic light signals or gear shift indicators or booking a spot for delivery.
Allocating empty spots and path to the spot in real time.
Route details – in order to create/book a parking spot or assisting the driver for upcoming signals the routes must be integrated through the system, which can be a GPS.
Road side equipment- Infrastructural changes (traffic signals) made to identify trucks with Freilot system and granting them priorities in real time traffic.

Requirements:

Infrastructure- Intelligent communication among vehicles along with the road side equipment.
Installation of equipment – cheaper if part of planned maintenance/upgrades
The configuration of the traffic controllers in Helmond had to be modified to accommodate FREILOT. The cooperative software was gathered from various sources (CVIS, SPITS, open source community) and updated.
Local authorities, city policies.
Separate display on the dashboard and drivers adapting to use them correctly.
It should match the expectations of the truck drivers as they are part of the team.

Struggles

Safety – The service/suggestion provided by system application should be accurate and real time. A small change or error might lead to an accident.
Handy – The system should be smooth, useful and easy to operate, so that the drivers will make use of the system
Compliance - In case of Accelerator Limiter(AL) many drivers were seen breaking the suggested limit. So, it was seen a difficult task for concluding the results.
Local laws- In Lyon FREILOT had to overcome an early challenge due to the incompatibility of one of the FREILOT service’s premises with French law (one cannot reserve a parking area for a particular class of vehicle)
Policy, Drivers and fleet operator’s acceptance.

Project output

EEIC Helmond where the rate of change between baseline and pilot periods is -13% or EEIC Lyon with a rate of -8%.
Since the fuel consumption is strongly linked to gas emissions, EEIC Helmond reduces the CO2 and NOx emissions by 13% and EEIC Lyon experience a benefit to the environment in a similar way. Intersection 2EW in Krakow reduces the emissions by 65%. These scores were achieved by the system mainly due to the drastic reduction in the number of stops.
the evaluation of DSB does not show a significant result in terms of fuel
consumption/emissions reduction, it highlights its considerable impact on overall traffic, especially in illegal parking. In this case the system led to a remarkable increase in the number of deliveries. In addition, for this service the good welcome of DSB in Bilbao is remarkable.
In the case of Accelerator Limiter system, the results found under the experiment conditions, in terms of fuel consumption are not so significant, being between -2% and 2% fuel consumption increase. In the case of ASL there is reduction, but not so big. The scope of this limiter is more safety-related than economic related.
The EDS impacts on fuel consumption are also closely dependent on the drivers. In this case, the data analysed shows a maximum fuel reduction of 6,6% in the 0-100 km/h speed range and 15,3% in the 0- 50 km/h speed range (in urban/suburban utilization). In long haul utilization, the maximum fuel reduction achieved was 6,3% in the 0-100 km/h speed range and 11,6% in the 0-50 km/h speed range

Assets:

Real time data sharing software (from SPITS, CVIS) – v2x
FREILOT application/software in trucks.

Limitations:

As the project has been tested on only a limited number of trucks, when the volume of trucks with the FREILOT system increases substantially the number of drivers getting priorities in traffic signals and spot reserving is increased so much that it actually does not offer any advantage.
Real time data management with increased volume of users.
Drivers adaptability to the system.

Project Manager

Gert Blom