Course syllabus

TEK465 - SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION

TEK465 TEK465 Sustainable transportation lp1 HT21 (7.5 hp)

The course is offered by the Department of Technology Management and Economics

Autumn term 2021 - THIS COURSE WILL TAKE PLACE ONLINE THIS TERM via ZOOM

Course in the Master Programs:

Sustainable Energy Systems, Supply Chain Management, Infrastructure & Environmental Engineering

Examiner:  Violeta Roso (violeta.roso@chalmers.se)                           

Content leader: Lokesh Kalahasthi (klokesh@chalmers.se)

Leader for propulsion technologies module: Anders Nordelöf (anders.nordelof@chalmers.se)

Course Assistant: Juan Pablo Castrellon (juanpabl@chalmers.se)             

Course Overview

Objective and content

Alternative propulsion technologies are a necessity if a sustainable transport sector is to be achieved. However, they cannot be the sole answer for resolving the sustainability problems of the transport sector. Though innovative propulsion technologies have reduced the emissions per kilometre driven, these improvements are not enough to offset rising traffic volumes. Achieving any significant absolute emission reductions would require immense amounts of alternative propulsion technologies, which is likely to have significant negative side effects and challenges, e.g. competition to food production, resource availability and land-use impacts. Furthermore, cleaner vehicles and fuels cannot mitigate the increasing traffic levels resulting in growing congestion, noise, accidents and land taken from infrastructure.

This course discusses technological measures and political initiatives to reduce the unsustainable impacts of the transport sector. The course aims to provide an understanding of the character and scale of the problem and the challenges of potential solutions.

The course takes a holistic perspective on the transport system including passenger and freight transport as well as developed and developing countries. The lectures in the course include:

• Unsustainable impacts of different transport modes, e.g. passenger cars, trucks, rail, sea and air transport
• Alternative propulsion technologies, e.g. biofuels, hybrid and electric vehicles, hydrogen and fuel cells, etc.
• Innovative mobility services and transport policy initiatives, e.g. congestion charges, regulations, etc.

Learning outcome

After completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• Explain the unsustainable impacts of today’s transport sector
• Analyse and compare the potentials and challenges of technological, organisational and policy solutions
• Critically judge solutions and propose a plan towards sustainable transportation

Organisation

The course has four main components: Background lectures, literature seminars, guest lectures and, a case study. The background lectures give a basic understanding of the topics covered in the course. The literature seminars consist of students’ presentations of contemporary topics on transport technology and policy. They are used to extend the course content to cover recent transport sector developments and to stimulate debate. The guest lectures by specialists from industry/policy/research institutes/etc. provide insights on a specific issue. The case study is a group assignment and is used to apply the developed knowledge on a practical example.

Attendance

Attendance for 13 out of 19 Guest Lectures (GL) is compulsory to pass the course. If you cannot attend any lecture/s for medical reasons, contact the examiner to find a solution.

In Zoom:

• Be sure you have a zoom account, you need to sign in before every lecture
• Use your complete name when registering as this will be used for attendance
• You should try to have video on at all times, unless conditions do not allow
• For questions (some lecturers can give you different instructions that you should follow)
  • Raise your hand using zoom function on the participants panel
  • Write on chat for questions that can be addressed later in the lecture
• While sharing screen, use ”side by side mode”:
  • In View options, choose ”side –by-side” mode
  • Choose ”speaker view”
  • Adjust size of speaker window

Examination

To better integrate the lectures with the examination and to increase student-student interaction, this course has continuous examination based on hand-ins (to be written during the reading period) of regular home examination reports and case study tasks. The examination reports (69 points), the case study (26 points) and the literature seminar presentation (5 points) will contribute to final course marks (100 points). All parts (literature seminar, examination reports and case study) are required to pass individually in order to pass the whole course.

Task	Max. Points	Points Required to Pass	Instructions Page
Literature seminar	5	2.5	See here
Examination report 1	23	9	See here
Examination report 2	23	9	Available soon
Examination report 3	23	9	Available soon
Case Study	26	10	See here
TOTAL	100	39.5

The final course score results in the following grades:

• 0 – 39 points: not passed
• >39-59 points: Grade 3
• >59-79 points: Grade 4
• >79-100 points: Grade 5

Note: No late submissions are accepted. Please contact the acting examiner (Lokesh klokesh@chalmers.se) in case you cannot submit an exam or case study on time due to any unavoidable reasons e.g., health, family issues.

Three written home examination reports (3 x 23 points)

The examination in this course is organized in the form of three home examination reports, which are to be written during the reading period. The reports deal with the basic theories and concepts covered in the course. The home examination reports are designed as teamwork of 2 students. The purpose of this approach is to better integrate the lectures with the examination and increase student-student interaction and thus improve the learning outcome for the students. See more details here.

Literature Seminars (5 points)

The course includes literature seminars on contemporary topics on transport technology and policy. They are used to extend the course content to cover the recent developments in the transport sector and to stimulate debate. The literature review is a group work of 4 students. In order to pass the course each student has to (1) review the literature on a specific contemporary topic and present the results at one of the seminars; and (2) prepare 4-5questions for discussion with the group you are opposing. See more details here

Case study (26 points)

The case study is a group work of 4 students in each group. It deals with the analysis of urban logistics operations in an area in Gothenburg. In the first step, you use traffic data (the data will be handed to you instead of being collected because of the pandemic) to assess the sustainability performance of the urban logistics operations as it was in 2013 and as it was in 2019; in the second step you use simulated data to assess hypothetical scenarios; and in the third step, you use the previous results to assess certain policies and make observations and recommendations. See more details here.