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Data at the heart of decreasing transport emissions

03 June 2021 #TNB News #Uncategorised

As we move towards cleaner technologies in order to help meet our ambitious environmental targets, collecting and understanding data has never been more important. After all, measuring the speed of progress will be key to helping us cut CO2 emissions successfully.

I joined the SMMT in early 2011, and within weeks attended my first Board meeting of the CLCCR<http://www.clccr.org/>. We had a presentation on a new software program: the Vehicle Energy Consumption Calculation Tool (VECTO). During the meeting there was considerable scepticism that the sector, with its huge diversity of vehicles, could be modelled in such a way.

However, here we are all those years later and the program now sits at the core of what is the EU’s and the UK’s HDV decarbonisation strategy. Trucks came within scope a while ago and this week a workshop was held to bring trailer builders up to speed. Plus, now we have the parameters the bus manufacturers will need to contribute to VECTO, which also describes how input information on auxiliary systems will be measured – which allows us to better calculate vehicle-specific CO2 emissions. This work now enters a testing phase over the summer, and a vote on the new regulations is expected by the end of the year.

It is fascinating to be at the heart of an industry both contributing to, and observing, such an enormous change. I wonder how things will look in another ten years’ time.

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