Optrak’s vehicle routing software to be used by Centre for Sustainable Road Freight

HERTFORD, U.K. - May 23, 2013 - PRLog -- Optrak today announced that it has become a founding member of the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight (SRF) alongside Cambridge University, Heriot-Watt University, John Lewis, Tesco, DHL, Wincanton and Volvo.  Optrak’s vehicle routing software will be used by the SRF as part of the research into finding new ways of delivering road freight that minimise the environmental and social impact whilst remaining commercially viable.

Tim Pigden, Managing Director of Optrak (http://www.optrak.com) said, “The Centre for Sustainable Road Freight is a vital initiative that will bring together and facilitate cutting edge research and developments in logistics  with commercial freight operators and other companies that affect the UK supply chain.  This unique collaboration will enable the industry to work together to address the challenges faced by 21st century freight operators.  The outcome will be new ideas that can be applied commercially and cost effectively, to change the way goods are delivered in the UK.”

With 3.9m tonnes of freight delivered daily in the UK, optimising the vehicle routes that freight operators follow is a natural area for improvement.  However, many companies rely on outdated freight transport systems or follow planning approaches that were not designed for the current level of freight demand.  As a result there is a great deal of scope to introduce more efficient ways of working that still meet customer demand for convenient delivery times and more frequent deliveries.

The SRF is a £6m UK initiative to minimise environmental impact of road freight transport. It brings together road freight vehicle engineering expertise from Cambridge University Engineering Department and logistics expertise from Heriot-Watt University's Logistics Research Centre to explore ways to make road freight economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.

Optrak’s vehicle routing software will be used by SRF researchers to conduct and validate strategic planning scenarios such as using urban consolidation points, increased use of inter-modal logistics delivery and switching to different types of delivery vehicle configurations.

David Cebon, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge University and Director of the SRF added, “Vehicle routing software (http://optrak.com/content/optrak-vehicle-routing-1)  has the potential to make a significant impact on achieving key goals of the SRF, for example to reduce total fuel consumption, minimise CO2 emissions and reduce fleet mileage.  It is critical that as an industry we work together, we work smarter and collaboratively, we create new freight distribution systems that deliver incremental improvements that can be deployed in the real world.”