Abstract
Today commercial transport in urban areas faces major challenges. These include making optimal use of limited space, avoiding empty trips, meeting driver shortages as well as reducing costs and emissions such as CO2, particulate matter and noise. The mutual acceleration and reinforcement of technological trends such as electrification, digitization and automation may enable new vehicle and mobility concepts that can meet these challenges. One possible vehicle concept is presented in this article. It is based on on-the-road modularization, i.e., a vehicle that can change different transport capsules during operation. The vehicle is divided into an electrically propelled autonomous drive unit and a transport unit. Standardized interfaces between these units enable the easy design of capsules for different uses, while the drive unit can be used universally. Business models and operating strategies that allow optimal use of this vehicle concept are discussed in depth in the article. First, the current situation is analyzed followed by a detailed description of an exemplary business model using a business model canvas. The operating strategies and logistics concepts are illustrated and compared with conventional concepts.
Highlights
The article is structured as follows: the Section 1 highlights the current situation of urban transportation with its challenges as well as a benchmark of existing ideas for modular vehicle concepts; Section 2 introduces the methodology, while Section 3 details one specific on-the-road modular vehicle concept, which is being developed within our institute (the detailed technical description and the in-depth derivation of the vehicle architecture are not part of this paper; this is covered in Ulrich et al (2019) [2]); the business models and operational strategies for this specific vehicle concepts are described and discussed in Section 4; conclusions and an outlook are drawn in
After the methodology section, we propose another OTR modular vehicle we propose another OTR modular vehicle concept that was developed at the German Aerospace concept that was developed at the German Aerospace Center, Institute of Vehicle Concepts, which
A new OTR modular vehicle concept is presented, comprising an electrified and autonomous driveboard and separated low-cost capsules that can be switched during operation
Summary
The article is structured as follows: the Section 1 highlights the current situation of urban transportation with its challenges as well as a benchmark of existing ideas for modular vehicle concepts; Section 2 introduces the methodology (new section compared to [1]), while Section 3 details one specific on-the-road modular vehicle concept, which is being developed within our institute (the detailed technical description and the in-depth derivation of the vehicle architecture are not part of this paper; this is covered in Ulrich et al (2019) [2]); the business models and operational strategies for this specific vehicle concepts are described and discussed in Section 4; conclusions and an outlook are drawn in Section 5.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
