How Transportation Impacts the Environment and Builds Sustainable TMS
- How transportation affects the environment?
- How does the transportation industry affect the environment in numbers?
- The matter of noise pollution
- How can we reduce the impact?
- How do transportation options affect the environment?
- How transportation management system can make things better?
- Challenges to building a sustainable Transport Management System
- How Coreteka contributes to developing a sustainable future?
- Is it getting worse or better?
Transportation plays a central role in economic and social development. Its objective is to move passengers and goods efficiently to a variety of locations with the least negative impact of transportation on the environment.
However, the irrational use of transport causes serious damage to the ecology every year. Emissions of carbon dioxide were rising by about 1% per year over the past ten years because of passenger road vehicles’ growth. The emissions growth was led by China and India. The United States experienced an increase of over 3%.
With transportation being restricted within and between countries after the COVID-19 pandemic, global CO2 emissions decreased by –17% on average.
It’s only fair to say that the impact of transportation on the environment can be drastic and lead to brutal consequences.
Let’s see how does the transportation industry affect the environment and what we can do to reduce its impact?
How transportation affects the environment?
Current transportation systems in megacities are facing several challenges: traffic congestion, lack of reliable and safe public transportation, road accidents, air, and noise pollution, climate change, and energy depletion.
Energy use and carbon emissions are increasing faster in the transport sector than in any other sector. Vehicle emissions significantly degrade air quality, especially for pedestrians on busy highways, and drivers. The impact of transportation on the environment is caused by toxic air pollutants, which cause primarily lead to increases in asthma hospitalizations, cancer, heart attacks, and respiratory and neurological diseases.
Highway vehicles, marine engines, and aircraft are sources of pollution with gas greenhouse emissions that affect air quality. Fuel, chemical, and other hazardous particles from port and airport terminal operations can contaminate rivers, lakes, and seas.
How does the transportation industry affect the environment in numbers?
The impact of transportation on the environment is predetermined by excessive traffic congestion. The road transport sector makes 74 percent of global CO2 emissions, while aviation, shipping, and railways report 12 percent, 10 percent, and 4 percent respectively.
The proportion of the transport sector in world oil consumption is much higher than the share in world energy consumption.
The emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel is a major contributor. The elements like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide (N2O), nitrogen oxides, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are causing global warming.
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The matter of noise pollution
Airports and railway stations are such large blocks of land that they create huge streams of sounds, harmful to human health.
The transport noise pollution problems, which are a part of the impact of transportation on the environment, vary along brake screeching, door slam, loose loads, horns, and over-amplified music systems. Though such sounds are considered less damaging, they still can bring health issues to those who are exposed to them for long periods of time.
Noise emissions can be reduced through measures, related to road surfaces, by increasing the distance between source and recipient, widening the existing roads, or hampering noise propagation by insulating buildings or constructing noise barriers. The construction of new roads works as a temporary solution because these roads will become congested again. Another possible solution is to lower speed limits on congested highways.
How can we reduce the impact?
To reduce the impact of transportation on the environment, countries have regulated the emission level of pollutants in passenger cars and heavy-duty vehicles. To overcome difficulties with air pollution, companies worldwide implement green technologies in the transportation system.
In fact, the only way we can essentially stop the problems is to fulfill green management’s practices for environmental safety in the reduction of fuel and oil consumption:
- to eliminate the usage of gasoline-powered vehicles, choose hybrid and electric vehicles instead;
- to use the best quality fuels for the vehicles;
- to reduce the travel distance of the passengers;
- to raise usage of public transport instead of private;
- to build proper transportation infrastructure;
- to switch to a more environmentally-friendly fuel (biodiesel and bioethanol). CO2, which is emitted during combustion, is equal to the CO2, that is taken up by the biomass during cultivation.
How do transportation options affect the environment?
General trends in the transport segment show the usage of electrical modes. Elon Musk, a famous industrial designer, believes that it would take numerous decades just to stop the production of gasoline-powered vehicles. He proposed to establish a carbon tax on companies that are disgorging C02 into the atmosphere. Musk’s innovative company Tesla has played a significant role in his efforts to eliminate the need for fossil fuels. Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy through increasingly affordable electric vehicles and energy products, powered by solar energy, that can certainly decrease the impact of transportation on the environment.
Battery electric vehicles are the optimal solutions for short city routes, and fuel cell vehicles – are for longer routes. The options listed below are considered “green” transport:
- modern electric trains which use hydro or nuclear power;
- electric motorcycles are powered by batteries, and they do not produce any emissions;
- hybrid cars have two powered engines: one runs on gasoline and the other has an electric motor;
- a shared electric two-wheeler consumes less energy than electric cars and has good battery capacity.
How transportation management system can make things better?
Presently, Transportation Management System, also known as TMS, is originally developed to rationalize transport flows and plan and execute the physical movement of goods across the supply chain. Companies can use it to manage their freight operations digitally instead of calling and emailing the partners.
TMS is beneficial not only financially, but as a solution for supporting transport networks in diminishing the movements and different kinds of emissions. It improves operational processes with correct analytics and diminishes the impact of transportation on the environment.
Overall optimization is performed through artificial intelligence usage, automated decision-making, load and route consolidation, and automated freight audit, which brings the companies up to 8% of the economy. Locating all of your transportation data in one place makes it possible to schedule and track shipments in real time quickly and easily.
From shippers with only a few loads a week to enterprises with hundreds of orders, TMS allows locating all transportation data in one place, and scheduling shipments in real-time. Transportation management system software can assist with the following functions:
- find out the prices for customers’ orders and book for delivery;
- track from the warehouse to the final destination;
- manage contracts;
- provide freight options in all modes domestically and internationally (by sea, train, or plane; in bulk or in parcels);
- optimize routes (loads, carrier selections, analytics);
- create invoices, make reports about freight audit (no errors and duplicate payments in documents);
- integrate into ERP or WMS;
- measure Key Performance Indicator.
TMS helps the shippers to determine the best transportation mode and most reliable carriers. The users are positioned to negotiate better rates and service levels with their partner carriers. All stakeholders can use this platform to import orders, consolidate them into loads, and see updates. The cloud-based transportation management systems are looking more user-friendly and cost-effective.
If you wish to learn more about TMS, check the video below:
Challenges to building a sustainable Transport Management System
Transport Management Systems are complex software that must be scalable, secure, and user-friendly. Here are some challenges you may face when developing such projects.
#1 Data sources integration
To make reliable predictions about delivery time and track vehicles at each destination, you need extra sources of information. For example, GPS, telematic devices, and weather forecast websites. Moreover, data sources can be provided in different formats and protocols which complicates the integration task.
#2 Scalability
The transportation process is based on collaboration between multiple stakeholders like drivers, dispatchers, and fleet managers. Moreover, it involves a large number of vehicles and routes. In such a way, you should build a Transport Management System which is able to handle large volumes of data and provide real-time updates without experiencing any lag.
#3 Security
A TMS contains sensitive data, such as vehicle locations and driver details, which can be vulnerable to cyberattacks. Ensuring the security of the TMS requires implementing measures such as encryption, access control, and regular backups.
#4 Complicated user interface
Since Transport Management Systems contain large amounts of information, they’re frequently not user-friendly. However, you should understand that it will be used by your employees. So, make sure your TMS has a simple user interface where all necessary data is shown clearly.
#5 Mobile compatibility
A TMS should be compatible with mobile devices to enable drivers to access information and update their status on the go. The system should also support mobile applications that drivers can use to receive real-time updates on their routes and schedule changes.
#6 Interoperability
The TMS should be interoperable with traffic management, toll, and public transportation systems. This enables seamless data exchange, allowing you to reduce traffic congestion, improve safety, and increase efficiency.
How Coreteka contributes to developing a sustainable future
When our team develops logistics solutions, we care not only about the technical project aspects but also about the significant impact it will make.
Once, a division of the American tobacco company Philip Morris approached us to develop a Transport Management System (TMS). The main issue was that their logistics processes were inefficient, with transport often moving empty, leading to unnecessary financial expenses.
During the business analysis, we also identified that 720 million miles of empty truck mileage resulted in 85,320 tons of CO2 pollution per year. Therefore, another significant TMS development goal was to reduce these numbers by optimizing transport routes.
Through our collaboration with Philip Morris, we decreased logistics costs by 2% and carbon dioxide emissions by 1.2%.
Our team tackles complex logistics challenges that can have a global impact on businesses. Among our projects is not only the development of a sustainable TMS. We also specialize in creating:
- Courier service solutions.
- Logistics systems integrations through API.
- Solutions powered by GPS.
- Digital logistics platforms.
- Data science for mobility and transportation.
Have a project in mind? Drop us a line to chat with your team and learn how we could help.
Is it getting worse or better?
The impact of transportation on the environment leads to negative results now, but the world slowly wakes up, and more companies day by day are making investments in things that will save the planet in the long run.
Transport management systems are only a part of the ecologically friendly approach. But, if you’re looking into the perspective of reducing the impact transport has now on the environment, check what transport management systems have to offer. This might be the first step to reducing overall pollution.
