Abstract
From airplanes to electric vehicles and trains, modern transportation systems require large quantities of energy. These vast amounts of energy have to be produced somewhere—ideally by using sustainable sources—and then brought to the transportation system. Energy is a scarce and costly resource, which cannot always be produced from renewable sources. Therefore, it is critical to consume energy as efficiently as possible, that is, transportation activities need to be carried out with an optimal intake of energetic means. This paper reviews existing work on the optimization of energy consumption in the area of transportation, including road freight, passenger rail, maritime, and air transportation modes. The paper also analyzes how optimization methods—of both exact and approximate nature—have been used to deal with these energy-optimization problems. Finally, it provides insights and discusses open research opportunities regarding the use of new intelligent algorithms—combining metaheuristics with simulation and machine learning—to improve the efficiency of energy consumption in transportation.
Highlights
Logistics and transportation activities are one of the fundamental pillars for economic development worldwide
We focus on heuristic-based approaches that are used to solve energy-related transportation problems in freight road, passenger rail, maritime, and air transportation
Each paper was classified based on its main approach for increasing efficiency in the use of energy
Summary
Logistics and transportation activities are one of the fundamental pillars for economic development worldwide. According to the U.S Bureau of Transportation Statistics [1], the average annual growth in transportation-related demand from 1999 to 2016 was about 10%. The contribution of transportation to the GDP of Europe is about 5% [2]. Across the globe, both freight transportation and passenger-mobility activities have been on the rise. Between 1995 and 2015, freight transportation activities in the USA increased about 17.6%, while the increase in the passenger transportation activities in the same period was about 18.3%. In the EU-28, the increase in freight and passenger transportation was about 24% each. The transportation field is one of the major contributors to global energy consumption, being responsible for almost 29% of the global energy consumption by sector, and producing up to 24% of Energies 2020, 13, 1115; doi:10.3390/en13051115 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies
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