INGENIEUR
REPORT
INGENIEUR
What Others Say About Transportation Trends
By Samniang Saenram
REPORT
McKINSEY & COMPANY Rail Sector’ s changing Maintenance Game
The rail sector is no exception when it comes to disruptive changes through digitisation. In a sector where fleet reliability is a key lever for increasing efficiency and reducing the total cost of ownership( TCO), big data and advanced-analytics solutions, such as condition-based maintenance and predictive maintenance, represent a great opportunity to yield the next big efficiency leap in maintenance— reducing the number of failures, the amount of unplanned maintenance, and eventually, the required level of reserve asset capacity for operators.
How container shipping could reinvent itself for the digital age
Let’ s imagine it 50 years from now:-
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Autonomous 50,000-TEU ships will plow the seas— perhaps alongside modular, drone like floating containers— and the volume of container trade will be two to five times what it is today.
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Short-haul intra-regional traffic will increase as converging global incomes, automation, and robotics disperse manufacturing footprints. Container flows within the Far East will remain huge, and the second-most significant trade lane may link the region to Africa, with a stopover in South Asia.
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After multiple value-destroying overcapacity and consolidation cycles, three or four major container-shipping companies might emerge: digitally enabled independents with a strong customer orientation and innovative commercial practices, or small subsidiaries of tech giants blending the digital and the physical. Freight forwarding as a stand-alone business will be virtually extinct, since digital interactions will reduce the need for intermediaries. All winners, closely connected through data ecosystems, will have fully digitised customer interactions and operating systems.
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A fully autonomous transport chain will extend from loading, stowage, and sailing to unloading directly onto autonomous trains and trucks, with last-mile deliveries by drones.
Vehicle electrification and distributed energy generation
Global electric vehicle( EV) sales have risen quickly, thanks to purchase subsidies, falling battery costs, fuel-economy regulations, and product improvements. From 2010 to 2016, battery pack prices fell about 80 %, from approximately US $ 1,000 per kilowatt-hour to about US $ 227 per kilowatt-hour. When battery costs drop below US $ 100 per kilowatt-hour, EVs should achieve cost competitiveness with conventional vehicles. Renewable-power sources could also generate a notable share of the world’ s electricity within the next 15 years, as their costs decline.
Cities that have prioritised reductions in local air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions can encourage the shift toward EVs and low-carbon grid
76 VOL 74 APRIL-JUNE 2018