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Research project

Sixth Sense Transport: Reducing/re-distributing transport options through a flexible interpretation of time

Project overview

The 6th Sense Transport project explored the transport and business opportunities that may be gained by improving the temporal and spatial visibility of transport using Smartphones.

TRG worked with Oxfam in this research, giving their collection/delivery vehicles and clothing/book banks (the latter equipped with remote monitoring sensors) the properties of a channel within a social network (as in Facebook or Twitter). This enabled them to transmit data about their status, receive data about possible opportunities and carry information for others in the network, so enabling better travel and transport decisions to be made.

A Smartphone app was developed to help Oxfam staff to improve the efficiency of their logistics processes. A main interest for TRG was in how such new ‘visualisations’ of vehicle, bank and shop status given to Oxfam staff (drivers, area managers, shop managers) might enable more effective localised decision making to save time/fuel and lead to more reactive stock management.

Staff

Lead researchers

Professor Tom Cherrett

Prof of Logistics and Transport Mgnment

Research interests

  • Understanding and improving the distribution of goods and the management of freight vehicles in urban areas, including the supply of goods to hospitals and the use of consolidation centres; 
  • How optimisation techniques can be used to improve system efficiency and in what ways Intelligent Transport Systems (smart tagging of assets and the use of smartphones) can improve operating efficiency; 
  • Approaches to more effectively collect and manage the movement of waste in terms of both household domestic waste collection strategies, Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) management and joint domestic/commercial waste collection strategies. He has worked on a number of research projects in these specific areas: (Department for Transport grant PPAD 9/142/034, ‘Optimising vehicles undertaking waste collections' GR/S79626/01, SUE project 55 ‘Transport and Logistics'; EP/D043328/1, ‘Green Logistics'.
Connect with Tom

Email: [email protected]

Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Research outputs

Dynamic collection scheduling using remote asset monitoring
F.N. McLeod, Gunes Erdogan, T.J. Cherrett & Tolga Bektas, 2013
Type: conference
Will privacy concerns limit the ability of smart phone technologies to help foster collaborative school travel?
Scott Cruickshanks, T.J. Cherrett, Ben Waterson, Sarah Norgate, Nigel Davies, Chris Speed & Janet Dickinson, 2013
Type: conference
Dynamic collection scheduling using remote asset monitoring
F.N. McLeod, Gunes Erdogan, T.J. Cherrett, T. Bektas, N. Davies, C. Speed, J. Dickinson & S. Norgate, 2013, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2378, 65-72
DOI: 10.3141/2378-07
Type: article
The scope for dynamic collection scheduling using remote asset monitoring
F.N. McLeod, Gunes Erdogan, T.J. Cherrett & Tolga Bektas, 2012
Type: conference
Sixth sense transport
Nigel Davies, M. Lau, Chris Speed, Tom Cherrett, Janet Dickinson & Sarah Norgate, 2012
Type: conference