Without doubt, the search for solutions that reduce emissions of passenger transport is one of the points where more efforts are being made. The electrification of urban bus is one of the points where most are working, there are several strategies that we will be reduced to two:
• Vehicles with a large capacity battery: ensure autonomy and recharge while standing. The main problem is the batteries: high cost, weight and volume to the Service.
• Vehicles with fast / ultrafast load at stops start / finish line: they need recharging infrastructure with high power at some stops. In this option, the bus will take the bus a motor that will ensure the service.
The REMOURBAN project, led by CARTIF, will work to integrate in Valladolid line 7 a demonstrator based on the second option.
The main objective of the project is to demonstrate a pilot fleet of innovative public transport vehicles (buses) that combine outstanding performance with low-energy consumption. This will be achieved by introducing hybrid buses with a newly developed plug-in technology, which makes it possible to electrify a major part of the city bus lines.
The project will demonstrate that this technology can contribute to reducing harmful emissions from European city public transport systems.
The project will demonstrate:
• A new plug-in technology for hybrid buses: the complete vehicle will be optimised to ensure high standards of drivability, performance, durability and safety;
• A fast charging service for the buses: a reliable and efficient solution for charging is of crucial importance for the future use of plug-in technology. An effective service must take account of the location of the charging system, as well as safety, time efficiency, environmental and spatial considerations.
• The new hybrid plug-in technology and charging service will be demonstrated on an existing public bus route: The ultimate goal of the project is to test both of these important factors in city traffic.
Expected results:
• Reduced CO2 emissions: reduced fuel consumption, combined with electricity generated from renewable sources, will reduce CO2-emissions, compared to standard diesel vehicles;
• Improved energy efficiency: less energy consumption than standard diesel buses;
• Reducing emissions of hazardous substances: a substantial reduction in diesel consumption, combined with more favorable driving conditions, will result in a reduction in emissions of NOx, PM, HC and CO;
• Less noise: in electrical operation will radically reduce the noise of the buses, especially in sensitive areas;
• Zero-emission areas: in selected areas, the buses will run on electricity only, making these “zero emission” areas.
In the first part of this post, we talked about the conclusions we heard in an interesting conference about air quality. After that, we decided two to do two things. On the one hand, to share the figures and conclusions there exposed and on the other hand, to work at self-examination, thinking about our behavior as citizens. What happens when someone asks us if we are willing to use public transport more often? Or to organize ourselves to reduce the number of our daily trips using the private car? We broached the subject of our rights:
• We have a right tobuy wherever we want. We love e-commerce. We are able to buy Chinese oranges on the internet and to ask for bringing them to our home. And if we were not there when company arrives, we are asking for returning another time. To exercise this right involves the use of vans to our home with very low occupancy rates. And not visit the neighborhood greengrocer, of course!
• We have a right to have the car we want, with a good engine and diesel (don’t forget it is cheaper), even for an urban use such as shopping or bringing children to school
• We have a right tomove anywhere within the urban public space. We intend to arrive to the center of our city driving and to find available parkings there. It is better than largest urban parks.
• We have a right to choose where to live and normally, we prefer the suburbs, with good quality of life (and good air). Moreover, we are moving with our private car whenever necessary, regardless of the reason. And of course, being the only occupant of our vehicle.
• We have a right to have public transport, anywhere and at any time, although sometimes the transports are running practically empty at certain periods.
• We have a right not to meet delivery vans in the middle of the street and we agree on the fact that Authorities restrict the time in which they are able to circulate through the city center. This means that companies have to increase their fleet with vans with poorer quality in order to have more available units and, consequently, to ensure orders. Including our oranges.
• We have a right to have dumpsters on our doorstep, with frequent domestic rubbish collection. If we do not check that truck passes several times a day, we are complaining.
• We have a right to review our vehicles periodically, but we order to companies which carry out the compulsory vehicle tests not take too long in the review and not to be expensive. Implementing appropriate control systems for detecting “big high-polluting cars” would require longer reviews and a higher price.
We are sure that you have ever used these rights to defend your comfort zone but, in CARTIF, we are convinced too that, with a little effort, we could change our habits by more sustainably customs. We know that awareness always takes time, but the same situation happened when the waste separation was legislated or when smoking in public places was banned, and both or them are now fully integrated into our daily practices.
For this reason, we are asking the authorities to let experts advise them both for implementing more measures to encourage sustainable behaviors and to penalize those which are damaging in excess. That is, we should support to have a little less of “individual freedom” in order to have a better air quality.
Because with the use of “our rights” what we are really doing is limiting the freedom of others. The elderly, children or people with respiratory diseases are risk groups and their health largely depends on the quality of the air they breathe.
Miguel de Cervantes wrote in his work Don Quixote: “Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea conceals can compare with it; for freedom, as for honour, life may and should be ventured (…) “.
The increase in life expectancy, coupled with the decline in the birth rate results in an increasingly aging population. According to projections by the National Statistics Institute, 30% of the population will be aged over 65 in 2050, and of these a third will be octogenarians.
This large population will present assistance needs which will scarcely be covered by the working population. Assistive robotics has emerged as a solution that can help alleviate this problem. Assistive robotics is the area of service robotics in which the robot interacts directly with the individual. The scope is very broad; robots can be designed to aid a person’s mobility (standing, walking, etc.), help in physical or cognitive rehabilitation and supply social support, care and entertainment. Unfortunately, the expectations that have been generated for this type of robots have been very high, partly because of movie robots: Walle, R2D2, C3PO, Short Circuit, etc., all have capabilities similar to humans. However, there are few robots that have been introduced in the market except for robot vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers and pool cleaners. The success of these robots is undoubtedly that they carry out very specific activities at a reasonable cost.
The main difficulty with care robotics is that they interact with people, so they must have robust perceptual systems, motion, manipulation, cognition capacities and interaction systems designed to communicate with humans using natural and gestural language.
The state of the current technology does not allow robots with those capabilities of movie robots to be developed. The solution is to develop robots with capacities restricted to defined contexts, limiting its functionality while ensuring proper integration of all subsystems that can overcome the envisaged situations. For example, the solution of a sequential complex problem such as a verbal dialogue with a robot can be to restrict the vocabulary and the topic discourse. This contextual grouping can be applied to other aspects like visual recognition or emotional control.
Another recommendation is that experimentation needs to be done from the beginning in real environments where the robot must work. Often, the efforts are focused on developments in the laboratory away from the end users and services to be provided.
A good methodology is to do iterative and successive refinements in the robot, incorporating new features and capabilities over time. The definition of metrics allows robot evolution and performance to be measured according to user requirements.
However, not only scientific barriers prevent robots from reaching the market. There are also social barriers that must be overcome. Often, there are serious drawbacks which prevent robots from being accepted by people: appearance, fear of technology, or fear of losing their job to the robots. These social aspects should be considered in the early stages of robot design.
Over the last few years in CARTIF, we have applied this design methodology based on user needs. Our latest challenge is Sacarino, a robot with social and interaction abilities which will provide therapy, assistance and entertainment in one of the living units at the Hermanas Hospitalarias Hospital in Palencia. Hopefully, we shall be able to contribute to the development of welfare robots and, in a few years’ time, care robotics will be a reality which could provide value-added services and would be present in our homes and hospitals.
Every day in the supermarket, we have to face the decision to buy one product or another. Unconsciously, and according to experts, we dedicate about 6 seconds to choose. If we only look on nutritional aspects, manufacturers must be able to communicate that their products offer advantages in relation to others. Thus, by nutrition labeling, manufacturers inform us about nutrients that a food gives us (nutrition claims) and even gives us information about possible health effects (health claims).
From the consumers’ point of view, nutrition labelingwould allow to choose a product knowingly, favoring even some changes in their eating behavior. Until now, at European level, some models for nutritional information have been designed so that information arrive easily to consumers, such as the use of Guideline Daily Amount (GDA), the nutritional traffic light, different symbols or health logos, etc. However, it does not seem that we are getting it, because some labeling studies continue showing that this information is difficult to understand for almost the 44% of people.
Having in mind that in the UK more than two thirds of the population is overweight or obese, the Royal Society for Public Health insists on the urgent necessity to propose innovative measures, relating to the labeling, able not only to provide information, but to change the consumer behavior. And for this, they propose to inform about the calories of food from a totally different perspective. So, instead of indicating the calories of a food, the product provides us the information about the necessary physical activity indicated to spend those calories, it means ‘equivalent activity’.
At the beginning, I have to admit that I like this labeling proposal, because it offers an easy reference and understandable for all, and it encourages to think about the necessary balance between calories consumed and those that are spent. But the best thing is that this initiative uses positive reinforcement, so that encourages us to get started in physical activity rather than stop eating certain foods. In this way, I believe that it could be possible to influence in the eating behavior of consumer and their lifestyle. I think that now the message that my brain receives will be: ‘you will burn these sweet biscuits with the sweat of your brow’, instead of ‘if you eat these biscuits, they will live in your body forever’.
Other proposal for labeling, which comes from the same British company, is based on including photos with the amount of sugar or salt that a food carries. Of course, the impact of reading that you are ‘eating’ 60 grams of sugar with a drink is not the same as watching equivalent to 15 sugar cubes. Is it?
I want to call these brilliant and wonderful ideas of labeling ‘ideas of clear labeling’, and I hope to collect more of them in order to tell them us in this blog.
Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that is little by little is making way in our daily lives. In broad terms, it consists in embedding digital information to the reality we have before our eyes through real-time superposition of this information about the image that provides our device, either a Smartphone, Tablet or a Smart Glasses.
Therefore, to use this technology is not necessary to have special devices. Thanks to the mobile devices development, equipment available to everyone as those mentioned before, can be the instrument that will allow access to the world of Augmented Reality (AR). It is true that in the last years are emerging new devices such as the Smart Glasses that are adapted specifically to this type of applications, and allow provide a better user experience by leaving freedom of movements of their hands. It is expected that with the development of new applications these devices will be entering in the consumer market in a generalized manner, as has happened with other devices such as smart watches, or activity tracker wristbands.
There are many applications of Augmented Reality (AR) and are varied. Most of them are oriented to leisure and tourism. As an example, there are applications that just taking a picture of a monument or a work of art, can provide you with information about it, its history, or oddities such as images of their appearance in the past.
New applications are emerging constantly related to leisure, mobility, marketing and advertising, including additional content that improve and enhance the user experience. These contents can be quite varied, including explanatory texts, links to supporting documentation, videos, images, indications for locating places or events, etc.
Equally, new applications are emerging for use in professional fields, such as architecture, to show designs and scale models, marketing and sales, for example catalogs that include QR codes to display additional content, medicine or education, which presents countless opportunities for the expansion of content through videos, tutorials or examples, allowing to learn in a more enjoyable and didactic way.
The industrial environments also are becoming an important field of application of Augmented Reality. Most experts expected that large-scale implementation in the industrial area will take place in the next three to five years as an increasingly robust technology. CARTIF is involved in some projects that apply the augmented reality to maintenance work in the industry.
Through the use of a Smart Glasses, the technicians are able toperform their tasks as they have always done, since they have complete freedom to use their hands, and at the same time they can access, for example, to technical specifications sheets for particular equipment, to the drawings of a facility, or the operating and malfunction history for a machine.
It would also be possible to guide the maintenance operator in performing a particular task, indicating the steps to be carried out and checking when and how has performed them. In the same way, they could be very useful in the training of novice operators for the accomplishment of these tasks, or even that the managers can monitor and evaluate the performance of operators.
We all know the great efforts made by the authorities in reducing road accidents, however, there are uncontrollable factors. This is the case of adverse weather conditions, including icing on the road surface.
To address this problem, each community uses its own winter maintenance works, defining the riskiest areas and periods of the year, and coordinating the means to combat the ice with tons of chemical deicers (salt, brine, etc.). The main consequence of this process is the significant environmental impact.
What would happen if we proposed roads heating with underfloor heating? The Answer is unanimous: “It is not feasible, the cost is very high .. !! “. But if we say, ” It could save lives on the road and reduce the use of chemical deicers,” things change. Therefore, the challenge ahead is to define specific heating solutions in the most dangerous areas of roads, where the possibility of saving lives is higher, and in fragile ecosystem areas where the use of chemical deicers are more harmful.
Heating the road with underfloor heating is not a new solution, if we surf the Internet and examine the issue in depth, we will see that similar solutions already exist in large bridges and airports. The high cost is not an impediment to its implementation. In general, these solutions are very expensive, both in its development phase and operational phase. Its goal is to melt the ice using large amounts of energy.
Therefore, the challenge ahead is to get an affordable and energy efficient system. This can only be achieved if the problem is approached from different ways (or points of view).
To begin with, the key point is to prevent ice formation, thus drastically reducing the amount of energy required to melt. But how is their formation avoided? A rational solution could be developing intelligent predictive algorithms that warn of icing risk in the short time. These techniques must be based on a good monitoring system. This system will know the weather conditions on the road and temperature conditions inside the asphalt, generally by sensors embedded in the asphalt mix. This monitoring must focus on the real parameters that influence the formation of ice on the road surface.
Another important point to study in depth is the asphalt mixes used in – road building, focusing on both, the binder and the mixture.
Binders that minimize the impact of low temperatures in the performance of the mixtures, ensuring good behavior and suitable fluxing properties are sought. For this purpose polymer modified bitumenand rubber improved bitumens are used. Mix parameters as the gaps will be another factor to consider in the design of these facilities
The next factor to choose is the energy source to heat the system fluid. The energy requirements to prevent icing are less than those required to melt. This makes geothermal energy a strong candidate.
Finally, it is necessary to define the characteristics and distribution of the tubes, the sizing of the installation, the thicknesses of the mixtures and many other factors to be included in the drafting stage of the construction project of a road. All under the tight restrictions imposed by the constructive factors and requirements of driving comfort.
In CARTIF we work in these research areas in order to achieve this goal in collaboration with Eiffage, Euroestudios, Cepsa and the University of Oviedo. So far the results are very encouraging.
