PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Transport is vital for the free movement of people and goods. However, the mitigation of the negative impacts of transport, while ensuring the positive aspects of mobility, is a major challenge. The use of sustainable and innovative means of transport plays an important role in achieving the EU's energy and climate objectives and the air quality in the urban environment.
A key aspect of efficient transport use is a high load factor. Road transport is known to have a vacancy rate of 30-40%, and thus there is great scope for improvement, which would contribute to a reduction in congestion, noise and most importantly in the emissions that are generated for each tonne transported.
In addition to the use of trucks, there are thousands of vehicles on urban roads in the EU every day, for all kinds of purposes. If these vehicles could also be used as a parcel delivery service, in addition to their main use, then an additional freight vehicle will not be needed.
Greece has the 2nd largest share of empty journeys in national road transport in the EU (i.e., 40% in 2020). This significant level of empty journeys in Greece affects the sustainability of urban logistics and at the same time creates opportunities for the development of innovative logistics solutions in order to reduce the share of empty journeys.
OBJECTIVES
The main objective of the LIFE GreenYourFreight (LIFE GYF) project is to develop a collaborative, innovative, multimodal logistic platform for sustainable last-mile-delivery of goods that can be competitive for SMEs and individuals. The platform will facilitate the transition to a sustainable, circular, energy-efficient and climate-resilient economy by minimising the environmental impacts of freight transport.
The main output of the project will be the GYF v3.0 service. The release of the GYF v3.0 service comprises three phases: scaling up GYF v1.0, integration, and demonstration in the operational environment of the associated beneficiaries/demonstrators and of six additional new users.
The project will run a real-life demonstration of GYF service for two periods of 12 months each. The LIFE GYF platform will link User Type 1 (UT1) which can be any carrier (e.g., truck, taxi, bus, private vehicle) with User Type 2 (UT2) which can be any shipper (e.g., retailer selling groceries, an individual). The main concept is that UT1 is already en route or has a prescheduled trip, hence the carbon footprint for the delivery of UT2 freight is nearly zero.
The project’s specific objectives are to:
Upscale, demonstrate and promote an innovative logistics platform (GYF v3.0) with various forms of transport services integrated into a single service, accessible on demand, including also shared and collaborative mobility services in the 2nd and 3rd year of the project.
Implement a product-as-a-service solution to optimise vehicle utilisation, increase occupancy rates and load factors, and reduce freight empty runs within the 2nd and 3rd year of the project.
Implement a freight and passenger sharing solution to balance the benefits of accessibility and economic development with the negative impacts caused by congestion and vehicle emissions.
Act as a catalyst for the large-scale development of a successful sustainable road transport mobility system, with the aim of reducing air pollutant emissions under real-world driving conditions during the real-life demonstration of the project.
Create significant revenues for a new company (i.e., GYF Company).
RESULTS
The anticipated results are:
Environmental savings:
FC: 3,377 tonnes
CO2: 10,702 tonnes
CH4: 0.06 tonnes
CO: 57 tonnes
N2O: 0.44 tonnes
NH3: 0.075 tonnes
NOx: 1.62 tonnes
PM: 0.033 tonnes
VOC: 0.52 tonnes
SO2: 0.012 tonnes
Socio-economic impacts:
25.8% and 22% increase of the load factor of DELATOLAS and CODOGNOTTO trucks respectively
seven freight distributors involved in the project by the end of the project
three new products for green city logistics
annual income of 4,748,480 € for UT1 and of 369,360 € for GYF company
seven UT1 and seven UT2 involved in the project
quick delivery of the best available freight transportation service (5 seconds) and quick reception of freight request by the drivers (5 seconds)
1,945 vehicles to have used GYF mobile apps within the project’s lifetime
9,646 entities informed about the GYF service
GYF service to be used in at least 31 regions
networking activities with five EU projects
2,431 requests per day submitted through LIFE GYF service
8,000,000 residents of the participating cities benefit from improved air-quality
