Abstract

Urban Consolidation Centres (UCCs) are often conceived as an enabler to alleviate negative effects associated with distribution of goods in cities, such as traffic congestion and hazardous emissions. UCCs not only have the potential to reduce these effects but also provide alternative distribution solutions by introducing new transhipment points. Despite their potential, UCCs often fail to be self-supporting and are often dependent on subsides, which is not considered to be sustainable in the long run. In response, this thesis takes its point of departure in the two business models elements value propositions and target customers. A business model is often viewed as an enabler to generate revenue and UCCs have the potential to generate revenue by offering services to their customers, and the customers pay for the services. To understand how customers can benefit from UCCs and provide arguments why they should use these, it is important to understand the relationship between customers’ needs and the services UCCs can provide. The purpose of this thesis is to identify and describe the potential relationship between needs of UCC customers and UCC services. The research in the thesis is both explorative and descriptive, where a first step is to identify customer needs, UCC services, and value propositions. The descriptive part is to describe them and it is also the foundation for understanding the relationship between customer needs and UCC services. Through the analysis and discussion, multiple customer needs are identified and described for seven customer groups and the UCC operator; all of which could be considered customers of UCCs. The thesis also adds to the UCC literature with three new identified UCC services: e-commerce with used products, advertisement, and registration in computer system. The outcome of the analysis also provides illustrations of how customer needs can be matched with UCC services. For the most studied customer group, receiver of goods, a total of 29 different matches were identified, which illustrates the possibilities but also the complexity of the relationships. To understand the relationship, three different types of gaps were also identified that have implications for future research. The main contributions to research and the UCC literature in particular are enlargement of the scope of customers and the illustration of the relationships between customer needs and UCC services. The illustrations include contributions such as identifying, mapping and describing the customer needs, UCC services, and value propositions. An important first step is to understand how customer needs and UCC services can be linked, and this thesis provides examples of how this can be achieved. Viewing every stakeholder as a potential customer opens up the opportunity to fulfil their needs and the potential to generate revenue, which in turn could close the gap in the problem of non-self-supporting UCCs. Furthermore, with self-supporting UCCs, the number of freight vehicles can be reduced and this may lead to more attractive cities with less traffic congestion and lower emissions. "p"I den tryckta versionen är det ena serienamnet felaktigt. I den elektroniska versionen är detta ändrat till korrekt: "Linköping studies in Science and Technology. Licentiate Thesis"

Abstract

ording to innovation literature, between 50% and 90% of innovations fail. An explanation for failing innovations is offered by scholars in the field of innovation resistance, who argue that it is more relevant to pay attention to the reasons why consumers reject an innovation, rather than learning about their motivations to adopt a new product or service. At the same time, previous marketing literature has devoted little attention towards design, despite its strategic importance and its role as a driver of innovation and competitive advantage. The purpose of this study was to investigate how companies perceive innovation resistance towards service innovations and how it is reflected in the service design. The major takeaways in this study revealed that companies were aware of all the barriers, except for social risk and perceived security risk. Furthermore, companies made most service design adaptations based on the usage and value barrier both prior and post launch. Also, although the tradition and norm barrier and image barrier were considered critical for an innovation’s success, companies did not change the service design accordingly. Finally, it was revealed that companies followed a hybrid approach of innovation, where more of a design-driven innovation strategy was used to generate innovation ideas and a user-centered approach was applied by involving consumers in pilot studies and listening to the consumer voices post launch.

Abstract

With the increasing environmental problems, sustainable consumption is an important consumer behavior. Therefore, it is important to investigate further the significant drivers to and barriers against sustainable consumption, in order to increase the share of sustainable consumption and understanding of consumer behavior. This dissertation identifies two gaps. The first is in understanding consumer positive and negative anticipated emotions as an important factor influencing high-involvement sustainable consumption. The second gap relates to the lack of understanding about the associations between anticipated emotions and personal moral norms in high-involvement sustainable consumption. Against this background, the aim is to contribute to the sustainable consumption literature by investigating the roles and relations of anticipated emotions, personal moral norms, and weighing costs and benefits as drivers to and barriers against consumer adoption of a high-involvement sustainable product. A literature review and two empirical studies were conducted. Consumer adoption of alternative fuel vehicles is the specific sustainable consumption. Using quantitative methods, this phenomenon is investigated in the empirical studies conducted in Sweden. It was shown that anticipated emotions have direct effects on consumers' intention to adopt alternative fuel vehicles. Moreover, positive anticipated emotions (e.g. pride, pleasure, happiness) are drivers of sustainable consumption, while negative anticipated emotions (e.g. regret, embarrassment) are barriers against the sustainable consumption. This dissertation suggests an extension to the norm activation model, and shows that moral norms, ascription of responsibility, and awareness of environmental problems influence consumers' intentions through consumers’ anticipated emotions. For people who perceive high social norms related to decreasing the environmental impacts of car driving, the influence of positive anticipated emotions and personal moral norms are stronger. This points toward the social aspect of sustainable consumption and suggests that targeting the consumers who perceive high social norms is an important step to promoting sustainable consumption. Findings would be of relevance to marketers, policymakers and environmental organizations. Creating awareness and communicating personal responsibilities and moral norms related to the environment and consumption are important drivers for consumer adoption of sustainable products. However, it is noteworthy that consumer anticipated emotions about high-involvement sustainable products (such as alternative fuel vehicle) have also important influence on the sustainable consumption. Thus, consumer anticipated emotions should be considered in designing promotion programs.

Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate potential synergies between an electronic waybill (e-Waybill) and other Intelligent Transport System (ITS) services. An e-Waybill service, as presented in this thesis, should be able to perform the functions of a paper waybill (which is an important transport document and contains essential information about a consignment) and it should contain at least the information specified in a paper waybill. To investigate synergies between the e-Waybill solutions and ITS services, we present 5 conceptual e-Waybill solutions that differ in where the e-Waybill information is stored, read, and written. These solutions are further investigated for functional and technical requirements (non-functional requirements), which can potentially impose constraints on a potential system that should implement the e-Waybill service. A set of 20 ITS services are considered for synergy analysis in this thesis. These services are mainly for road transport, however most of them are relevant to be considered for utilization in other modes of transport as well. For information synergy analysis, the e-Waybill solutions are assessed based on their synergies with ITS services. For different ITS services, the required input information entities are identified; and if at least one information entity can be provided by an e-Waybill at the right location we regard it to be a synergy. The result from our synergy analysis may support the choice of practical e-Waybill systems, which has the possibility to provide high synergy with ITS services. This may lead to a higher utilization of ITS services and more sustainable transport, e.g., in terms of reduced congestion and emissions. Additionally, a service design method has been proposed for supporting the process of designing new ITS services, which primarily utilizes on functional synergies with already existing ITS services. In order to illustrate the usage of the suggested method, we have applied it for designing a new ITS service, i.e., the Liability Intelligent Transport System (LITS) service. The purpose of the LITS service is to support the process of identifying when, where, and by whom a consignment has been damaged and who was responsible when the consignment was damaged.

Abstract

Background:          The growing number of electric vehicles gives rise to a whole new reverse supply chain. Once the electric vehicle batteries reach their end-of-life, societal and governmental pressure forces automotive manufacturers to set up a network for disposing the hazardous batteries. Although, the volumes of returned batteries remain low, volumes will increase in upcoming years. Current networks and processes related to the return flow of electric vehicle batteries are not well established, nor well defined. Thus, creating an urgency to develop efficient collection networks.   Purpose:                  The purpose of this study is to investigate how reverse logistics networks are currently set up and to provide an overview of how the different actors and processes are connected. In addition, this thesis aims to identify challenges encountered by logistics providers and recyclers. By doing so, we hope to contribute to the research gap of which factors that constitutes a bottleneck for further development of the reverse logistics chain of electric vehicle batteries.   Method:                  The thesis conducts an interview study and is qualitative in nature. Semi-structured interviews generated empirical data, which was analysed through cross-case analysis incorporating a thematic analysis. Through this analysis we were able to achieve new theoretical understandings in connection to institutional theory.   Conclusion:             Through empirical findings a detailed framework of the reverse logistics chain of EVBs is portrayed. Furthermore, different challenges span over the processes illustrated in the framework. This presents an overview which is not found in current literature and extends current research on this topic.

Abstract

The main goal of this thesis is to evaluate different machine learning models in order to classify buyers of an electric or a hybrid vehicle and to identify the characteristics of the buyers in the European Union. Machine learning algorithms and techniques were adopted to analyze the dataset and to create models that could predict, with a certain accuracy, the customer’s willingness to buy an EV. Identification of the characteristics of the buyers were based on the identified most important features from the machine learning models and statistical analysis. The research consisted of exploratory and explanatory methods (mixed method) with quantitative and qualitative techniques. Quantitative technique was applied to convert categorical values to ordinal and nominal numeric values, to establish cause and effect relationship between the variables by using statistical analysis and to apply machine learning methods on the dataset. The quantitative results were then analyzed by using quantitative and qualitative techniques in order to identify the characteristics of the buyers. The data analytics part relied on a publicly available large dataset from the EU containing transport and mobility related data. From the experiments with logistics regression, support vector machine, random forest, gradient boosting classifier and the artificial neural network it was found that ANN is the best model to identify who won’t buy an EV and gradient boosting classifier is the best model to identify who would like to buy and EV. ML based feature importance identification methods (MDI, permutation feature importance) were used to analyze the characteristics of the buyers. The major buyer’s characteristics found in this thesis are environmental concern, knowledge on car sharing, country of residence, education, control traffic, gender, incentive, education and location of residence. Authors have recommended green marketing as the potential enablers towards a faster and larger adoption of electrical vehicles in the market as environmental impact was found as the most significant behavior of the buyer. Finally, for the future researchers, the authors have recommended fine-tuning the algorithms extensively in order to achieve better accuracy and to collect primary data based on the most important features identified in this thesis.

Abstract

Between 1950 and 2013 the total amount of Swedish travelling has increased from about 20 billion to about 140 billion passenger kilometers. This included an increase in travelling with private cars from about 3 billion to about 105 billion passenger kilometers, and in bus travelling from about 2.5 billion to about 5 billion passenger kilometers. The European commission has indicated that public transportation (if powered by clean fuels) is a suitable way to reduce environmental and health problems.   This thesis focuses on sustainable personal road transport, and aims to develop and test a new approach to examining the economic and socio-ecological sustainability effects of various road vehicles for private travelling and related business models. A special focus is set on comparing various bus systems for public transport and ways (business models) for private people to access cars. The main comparison parameters are the total cost of ownership and carbon dioxide emissions of different energy carriers for buses and cars. The Design Research Methodology is used to guide the research approach. The approach also builds on the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, which includes, for example, principles that define any sustainable future and a strategic planning process. The approach first employs Strategic Life Cycle Assessment to give a quick overview of sustainability challenges in each bus life cycle stage from raw materials to end of life. Several analysis tools such as Life Cycle Costing, Life Cycle Analysis, Product Service System, and Business Model Canvas mapping are then iteratively used to ”dig deeper” into identified prioritized challenges. Literature reviews, interviews, and simulations are used as supporting methods.   The results from a first theoretical test of the new approach suggest that a shift from diesel buses to electric buses (powered by renewable energy) could significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions, while also significantly lowering the total cost of ownership. The theoretical calculations were followed up by testing of electric buses in real operation in eight Swedish municipalities. The tests verified the theoretical results, and showed that electric buses are better than diesel buses both from a sustainability point of view and a cost point of view, and also that electric bus operation is a practically viable alternative for public transport. The new approach was tested also by comparing a variety of business models for private car travelling. The results indicate, among other things, that only people who travel more than 13.500 kilometers per year would benefit from owning a car.   In all, the thesis suggests a simultaneous shift from diesel buses to electric buses in public transport and, for the majority of the car drivers that drive less than 13.500 kilometers per year, switching from car ownership to car use services would be favourable for an affordable transition of the transport sector towards sustainability. 

Abstract

Electric Vehicles are a growing trend globally and are currently disrupting the conventional automotive industry, therefore firms in the sector need new business models around their new value propositions. The concept of business model innovation presents an interesting point of view towards the challenges those firms face and provide possible solutions for them. The literature on this relatively new topic is scarce and needs more cumulative empirical research. We engage in a multiple-case study and explore how entrepreneurial and incumbent electric vehicle companies in the Nordics use BMI to overcome their biggest challenges and advance the development of the sector. With our findings, we provide an insight of some of the newest advancements in the EV technology, investigate what are the key antecedents, moderators, and outcomes of the BMI process for the researched companies and build on the existing literature on the topic. Finally, practitioners can gain a better understanding of the concepts of BM and BMI process and their importance for surviving in the dynamic electric vehicle market.

Abstract

a major contributor to reaching the goals of de-carbonization of the transport sector, the introduction of ERS-systems for heavy vehicles is a prioritized action, with Sweden as an example. Even if de-carbonization is asked for by policymakers, and part of the medium to long term strategy for many transport market players, it is very difficult to get the transition to take off. Hindrances related to current roles on the market, regulation and the ability to find new ways to finance and foster new business models can be observed. This resembles a ‘true uncertainty’-situation. The result might be a dead-lock where the introduction of ERS-systems is delayed. It is argued here that platforms and frameworks for testing new systems, where “regimes” supporting shared risk mitigation, faster innovation, and deployment of ERS-technology could be supported. We discuss possible ways for establishing such platforms and crucial policy content for these.

Abstract

The global aviation industry is facing complex and unpredictable market conditions with fluctuating oil prices and the adverse environmental impact of aircraft operations. Since the regulatory approval for biofuels, the first biojet fuel flight test in 2007, using a blend fuel, was a remarkable step towards having more test and schedule flights up to the year of 2014. The purpose of this paper is to engage this new alternative energy with the issues that airlines associate with sustainability, mainly focusing on aircraft operations and profitability. The key findings suggest that the uses of alternative energy need to be in parallel to the reliability and maintainability of the aircraft system, so that the adoption of biofuels can be effective.