Freight is already heavily reliant on Systems Engineering.  What more can SE do in this sector?

What is freight?

Freight refers to the transportation of raw materials, fuel (non-pipeline) and merchandise. It is intermodal, utilising road, rail, air and/or sea to deliver goods from point A (often the point of manufacture of an item) to point B (often the user/consumer) and contains multiple intersections with other transport operators. It is not typical for freight to use dedicated and isolated corridors. Instead, freight routes converge with other freight traffic as well as non-freight transportation. From a Systems Engineering (SE) perspective, moving freight has many similarities with inter-urban passenger rail.  Freight networks connect interchange points (or stations). Freight SE is inherently concerned with “Systems of Systems” and the “Turnkey” nature of delivering modal-specific (or interchange-specific) infrastructure that requires the co-ordination of multiple engineering domains and disciplines.

Why does Freight matter?

Efficient freight transportation is essential for productive manufacturing, to both move raw materials to the factory, as well as to send manufactured goods to market and to distribute it. Freight transport contributes to sustainability through integration with green energy sources. Unlike passenger transport, the initial capital costs of transition to green energy sources can be more readily amortised for a freight solution.

Systems Engineering in Freight

Freight systems can be viewed from the perspective of the signalling/control equipment, vehicle, power or other infrastructure items.  Alternatively, it can be seen or as a holistic entity, encompassing all the systems necessary to move traffic smoothly through the network. This also includes civil and communications infrastructure. 

The “system of systems” approach is embedded in the thinking underlying SE standards such as IEC15288, EN50126 and EN50129. The SE standards envisage multiple layers of systems, with the SE lifecycle applicable at each layer of integration and decomposition. At the level of the individual systems comprising a freight transportation network, a systems lifecycle such as the V-lifecycle from EN50126 for rail borne freight, is applied, with corresponding top-down decomposition, verification and validation.

The future significance of SE for freight

SE is already a critical tool for developing the complex systems that characterise turnkey freight solutions. One of the pivotal SE activities concerns the accurate identification, specification and testing of requirements and interfaces. Turnkey systems exhibit increasing levels of interface complexity and new requirements often need to be incorporated in the system lifecycle (e.g., interfaces not necessarily intended by the designers, such as for cybersecurity).

Freight systems do not yet typically apply overarching SE approaches in an integrated way to tackle increasing complexity. SE provides an opportunity to better manage complexity across multiple freight modalities. Freight is a prime candidate for decarbonisation and transition to green energy sources.  SE is essential to unlock such benefits through the integration of the transportation and energy sectors.

Source: Ian Taylor on Unsplash

Challenges in applying SE in Freight

Lack of knowledge of SE principles in the transport modalities other than rail hampers the application of Systems Engineering in a uniform way across the Freight sector.

Better understanding of fundamental SE concepts is needed to ensure the principles are properly applied and respected.   

Case Study – Freight Transport Systems 2050 

Freight distribution is a major economic enabler, directly affecting manufacturing performance and social wellbeing. Competitive pressures on manufacturers and retailers drive increasing dependence on ‘just in time’ deliveries, placing greater demands on the distribution system and pressure on the transport networks. If we look forward to the next 20 to 30 years, there are likely to be different requirements for freight and other potential disruptions to the status quo.  These changes make it unwise to simply extrapolate demand from the past for our transport planning.

Questions to ask and answer

All aspects of society are dependent on the movement of freight. This involves marine (sea, river, canal), road, rail and air transport. Looking forward to the future, a good question to ask would be, ‘what transport system strategy will best address the future societal and economic requirements of our society?’ Answering this must take into account advances in technology, the need to achieve the climate change targets, and changing consumer habits as well as supply chain resilience.

From an SE perspective, it is worth asking how the current, largely un-integrated freight transport system we have transition to a more efficient, resilient cross-modal system?  What should do to take advantage of technological developments (such as connected and autonomous systems) and significantly reduce their environmental impact? What are the critical transport policy and strategy decisions that need to be taken to realise this?

Conflict of demands

Stakeholders frequently have conflicting demands.  In terms of systems engineering one of the challenges is that different consumers and actors demand different things, for example sustainability versus convenience. There are many examples of consumers choosing to wait longer for a delivery because the solution is more sustainable. It is worth asking what other levers are pulling on other stakeholders and whether or not such behaviour can be incentivized, for example a lower cost for a slower delivery. Systems engineering has a role to play in helping to capture different stakeholder needs in context and then supporting the wider discussions about how those needs balance to deliver sustainable solutions. 

Systems engineering should be driven from the business/commercial/consumer perspective, rather than the technology. 

The role for regulation to drive change is limited. Whilst top- down regulation works in some cases, it is unlikely to be effective in this environment because it’s too diverse and international, so no one has overarching authority. Evolving a community of practice is a better way forward, allowing people, as it does, to express what they want to share whilst maintaining commercial confidentiality when appropriate. This can lead to conversations about what the sector may consider standardising on. 

Process re-engineering could be a route to developing a more sustainable, efficient and competitive freight sector. Systems engineering can provide a set of tools to help the sector achieve this aim.  There is, however, a tension between users, engineers and business driving change and regulators driving change.

Informed customers

 A significant emerging change is revolving around information available to customers. The opportunity exists for the sector to provide increasing amounts of source and tracking information to users and offer a broader consumer choice. For example, providing data on an item’s source or offering different delivery options based on carbon footprint would allow consumers to make more sustainable buying choices. The balance between consumer choice and business interest will need to be carefully assessed to maximise the opportunity, but data availability is emerging as a significant commercial advantage. The role of the system engineer in providing accurate, real-time data is clear. 

Government and regulation have a role to play in setting freight policy, objectives and removing trade barriers. Frameworks from regulatory bodies provide clear guidelines that help to provide direction and gain momentum toward the objective of efficiency. Having better guidance and regulation would help the freight market towards the 2050 goal. Once targets are clear, objectives become more tangible. 

It might be worth considering the role of autonomous systems in the long-term freight sector strategy. There is a strong development in Norway in autonomous marine freight transport using electric vessels. 

This also involves autonomy in loading and unloading. China is already transporting goods from China to Europe with the railway crossing seven nations. These examples should be taken into account when considering multimodal freight transport.

Share your thoughts!

Given how integrated freight movement already is, how much further can Systems Engineering take it in terms of efficiency, sustainability and cost?

 How far can Systems Engineering guard against a system failure in freight? 

What can automated systems add to current freight models?

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