Minimizing carbon footprint of a product : a transportation perspective

• Main Author: Xu, Qinqi.
• Other Authors: Khoo Li Pheng
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/54777
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Climate change has been widely accepted as one of the most critical challenges. This matter, which has great negative impact on both human life and the environment, becomes even more aggravated because of the carbon footprint contributed drastically from road transportation, through the increasing amount of household automobiles and the growth of allochthonic trade and delivery. Thus, reducing carbon footprint from road transport is of great significance. This work mainly focuses on minimizing carbon footprint from a logistic transportation perspective, which is one great resource of carbon footprint generated from road transportation. Traveling salesman problem is first introduced in this work. Subsequently, it is to be used to express the carbon footprint produced from a delivery assignment. A genetic algorithms combined with tabu search memory approach is proposed, aiming at minimizing the carbon footprint generated from freight vehicles. It turned out to have strong optimization and robustness capability. Then, activity factors are incorporated into the optimization model, to solve the carbon footprint minimization problem. Finally, a prototype system is developed for staff working in one distribution depot of a logistic company, to plan the routine for the freight vehicles to deliver commodities to destination in an environmental friendly way. It appears that this prototype system can help logistics companies achieving an environmental friendly processing of commodity distribution in a quick and effect way.