Tag Archives: university of minnesota

Environment, Freight and Railroads, Policy and Planning, Research

Will Hydrogen Be a Carbon-Neutral Fuel Alternative for Freight?

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Reprinted from CTS News, March 19, 2024
—Sophie Koch, contributing writer

Hydrogen is getting a lot of attention in recent years as a potential fuel source in the transportation sector. However, it is important to consider the pros, cons, and limitations of this molecule when deciding how to use it.

“(There) seems to be so much interest in this particular molecule, and for a lot of reasons—it has a lot of potential,” says Karen Bridges, research specialist with the U of M’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. “It’s a very flexible, light energy-carrier.”

Bridges, along with Assistant Professor Elise Harrington from the Humphrey School, co-authored a high-level review paper summarizing research and reporting on the viability of hydrogen as a carbon-neutral fuel alternative. The paper was commissioned by the Minnesota Freight Advisory Committee.

Hydrogen, Bridges says, has the potential to serve as a “missing link” in the quest for decarbonization. It is energy-dense enough to move heavy, long-distance freight, easy to store and transport, and able to be used in applications such as aviation, international shipping, rail, and trucking.

However, the main drawback to hydrogen is that not all of it is truly “clean.” Obtaining a hydrogen molecule involves using electricity to split an existing molecule (either natural gas or water) into its component parts. The cleanness of the hydrogen depends on what molecule is split, what energy source is used to split it, and whether there’s some sort of carbon capture method used to clean up the byproducts of the process.

(Photos: Kenworth)

The absolute cleanest method is called “green” hydrogen—it uses renewable energy sources to split water molecules, and it doesn’t need a carbon-capture method because there are no carbon byproducts. Unfortunately, green hydrogen is the most expensive to produce.

“Blue” hydrogen is in the middle in terms of both cost and cleanness; it splits natural gas molecules and has a carbon-capture system set up to catch the byproducts. “Grey” hydrogen, by contrast, also splits natural gas molecules but involves no carbon-capture system.

“Currently, it’s very expensive to produce zero and low-carbon hydrogen,” Bridges says. “There’s not a lot of it being produced today, and a lot of it’s grey, and so there would be a tremendous amount of investment that we’d need to go to scale.”

Increasing the scale and driving down the cost of green hydrogen are going to be key to making it a viable, affordable option for freight companies, Bridges says. Regional and cross-sector cooperation will help significantly in this process.

“In order to help support the development of the infrastructure, you really need coordination across the country,” Bridges says.

Initiatives aimed at pushing hydrogen forward are already in motion on the federal level, Bridges notes. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act has a Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit program for incentivizing hydrogen production facilities, and the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act dedicated $8 billion toward the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs Program to support the development of clean hydrogen production, storage, and transportation.

 “I think we’re really starting to see these things move forward,” Bridges says.

Bridges presented her and Harrington’s work at the 2023 Freight and Logistics Symposium. The white paper—Hydrogen for Freight in Minnesota: Considerations for Technology Readiness and Policy Options in Minnesota—will be posted on the MFAC website.

Policy and Planning, Research

States Explore Fee Alternatives to Fund Roadway Infrastructure

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Reprinted from CTS News; March 5, 2024
—Pam Snopl, CTS senior editor

The fuel tax is the backbone of our roadway funding system, but its ability to generate revenue is under pressure: more vehicles are using less fuel—or no fuel at all. In response, many states are turning to alternative revenue mechanisms to help bridge the funding gap.

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Environment, Research

Stormwater Research Sees Practical Application in Twin Cities Metro, St. Cloud

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Sophie Koch, CTS News, February 22, 2024

A long-running series of U of M research projects aimed at improving stormwater quality are beginning to see practical application by stormwater specialists from the Twin Cities metro area and beyond.

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Policy and Planning, Research

Researchers identify Minnesota’s best charging locations for e-trucks, aiming to boost adoption

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By Megan Tsai, reprinted from CTS News, February 8, 2024

Aiming to eliminate barriers to electric truck adoption in Minnesota, U researchers have identified the state’s most suitable e-truck charging locations.

Currently, the adoption of electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks is lagging compared with the rising popularity of personal and transit electric vehicles. There are several reasons behind the delay, but one key factor is the lack of an adequate charging station network for e-trucks. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) called on U of M researchers for insight and guidance.

“Our goal was to understand the needs and opportunities for e-truck charging stations and to optimize the location of charging stations in Minnesota, ” says Alireza Khani, associate professor with the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geo-Engineering and the project’s principal investigator.

The project was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, researchers identified the most important criteria to consider when planning e-truck charging stations; this was done with a survey of experts and stakeholders, including staff from MnDOT, the Freight Mobility Research Institute, and the American Trucking Associations. 

Based on this survey, researchers ranked the relative importance of the criteria and assigned each a weighted value. The top three criteria were ease of access for e-truck drivers, proximity to power substations, and proximity to existing truck stops. Other criteria included environmental conditions (land cover, water resources, and flood risk), land prices, and the potential to generate onsite solar energy. 

During the second stage, researchers developed geographic information system layers for each criterion and pared down candidate locations using optimization modeling. The model was designed to consider truck demand in Minnesota, the routing and charging activities of e-trucks, and the market penetration rate of e-trucks, with a goal of minimizing total travel costs to promote greater adoption of e-trucks.

“This optimization model is a novel decision-making tool that will help MnDOT maximize its return on investment in the charging station network,” Khani says. “The model can be expanded to incorporate other contributing factors and inform policy decisions.” 

To gain additional insight into Minnesota e-truck adoption, researchers tested the model with several assumptions based on the reduced per-mile operating costs of e-trucks over diesel trucks. They found that the adoption of e-trucks would grow sharply as the charging station network is developed; the growth rate would be highest when the first 30 to 40 stations are added. The modeling also found that solar generation was not a viable option to fully power truck charging stations.

MnDOT is focused on meeting the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, and increasing the adoption of e-trucks would help MnDOT proactively address this significant subsector of transportation greenhouse gas emissions. 

“This project helped us understand considerations for e-truck charging stations, such as electric power substation location and capacity,” says Andrew Andrusko, freight planning director with MnDOT’s Office of Freight and Commercial Vehicle Operations. “It also identified optimal locations for truck charging stations to support intrastate freight movement.”

Automated Vehicle Technology, Research

Connecting smart vehicles with traffic signals could reduce fuel use

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Originally published in Catalyst, July 18, 2022.

Green means go and yellow means go faster—so goes a wry take on driver behavior at traffic signals. But it’s not just travel time that increases when you brake for a red: Fuel consumption does, too. Could transmitting signal data to connected vehicles (CVs) reduce stop-and-go cycles and fuel use? U of M researchers say yes.

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Traffic and Safety

With new signal timing method, Twin Cities traffic could flow more smoothly

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Reprinted from Catalyst, May 12, 2023.

Eliminating intersection bottlenecks is one of the most persistent and difficult challenges for traffic engineers. A new mathematical theory called “max-pressure signal control” has been proven to achieve maximum throughput for entire city road networks, but it has not yet been used in practice. In a new study, U of M researchers brought the theory several steps closer to real-world use and found that it could offer many benefits to Minnesota road users.

“For most intersections and demand periods, we found that max-pressure control offered significant improvement over current signal timings,” says Michael Levin, an assistant professor with the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering. “Large reductions in delay—sometimes over 50 percent—suggest that this new method of signal timing could achieve higher throughput during peak demand and be more responsive to queues.”

To achieve these findings, researchers began by addressing some aspects of max-pressure signal timing that would make it difficult to implement in a real-world setting. First, researchers addressed its assumption that all roadways had separate turning lanes by adapting the mathematical model to accommodate mixed travel lanes.

Another drawback of the original formula is that the signal control doesn’t operate on a cycle; this could cause long wait times when demand is uneven and make the signal cycle unpredictable for both drivers and pedestrians.

“To solve this issue, we modified the formula to include a maximum waiting time and require that the phase selection follows a cycle,” Levin says. “This allows traffic engineers to create an ordered set of phases for each intersection.”

Once the updated version of max-pressure control was developed, researchers tested it in simulations of two corridors in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The simulations revealed numerous potential benefits including reduced environmental impacts and reduced road user costs resulting from travel time savings and lower fuel costs.

“The findings show that our new max-pressure control formula will reduce the average queue length during peak hours and that vehicles will not wait as long at intersections,” Levin says. “We can also predict higher throughput and faster vehicle speeds, all of which will mitigate congestion and improve quality of life.”

In addition, a cost-benefit analysis shows that the total value of travel time savings is considerably larger than the cost to implement max-pressure control.

The project’s success led researchers to explore the possibility of a real-world pilot project with available traffic signal hardware. They found that the traffic signal technology currently used in Hennepin County could be upgraded to support a pilot study, laying the groundwork for a future real-world test of this promising new signal timing method.

The project was funded by the Minnesota Local Road Research Board (LRRB). Phase two of the work, also funded by the LRRB, is underway.

Writer: Megan Tsai

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Environment, Research

Strategies improve pollinator roadside habitat, reduce costs

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First published in Catalyst, May 22, 2023.

Transportation agencies revegetate roadsides after construction projects to provide road stability, stormwater filtration, and visual appeal. Revegetation is also a good opportunity to create pollinator-friendly habitat. However, planting and maintaining ditches can be expensive, funds for such projects are usually limited, and there isn’t much data on which methods actually work.

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Multi-modal, Public Transit, Research

Multimodal trip planner to make travel easier in Greater Minnesota, rural areas

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Reprinted from Catalyst, May 9, 2023

When a person wants to take a trip across the country, they can choose from a variety of travel planning apps to help make that happen. But what if the trip they want to take is from Mankato to New Ulm, or within their own community, using non-personal transportation?

The Minnesota Department of Transportation has launched a pilot project to bring trip planning and payment technology for daily trips to areas less dense than urban settings.

Residents and visitors in southern and western Minnesota now have the ability to plan for and, in some cases, pay for public transit and intercity bus trips using the Transit app. Travel and route information for these agencies went live within Transit on March 1.

Transit, a free app available for download in Google Play or the Apple App Store, is used in more than 300 cities around the world. It allows users to see route and travel options for public transit and connecting services. Select agencies also have in-app ticketing, allowing riders to pay for fares electronically and then show their device to transit drivers to ride.

“This pilot with the Transit app focuses on rural areas because this technology has not yet been made available outside of Minnesota’s big cities,” says Elliott McFadden, MnDOT’s Greater Minnesota Shared Mobility Program coordinator. “The project will be the first to bring the latest technology to make it easier to plan and take trips in many communities in Greater Minnesota.”

The pilot will run through April 2024 and is funded by two innovation grants from the Federal Transit Administration at a cost of $1.9 million.

U of M researchers led by Alireza Khani will evaluate the project to help determine whether this technology should be scaled to the rest of the state. Focusing on southern Minnesota, the research team will work closely with MnDOT’s project management team and the platform development team to study these questions:

  • How do residents of the region benefit from having access to a variety of mobility options through an integrated platform?
  • To what extent does the platform help increase transit ridership and reduce personal vehicle use?
  • How can the features of the platform—such as route planning or pricing—be optimized for greater system efficiency and benefits for all residents?

“Our goal is to provide the data and analysis policymakers need to make the most effective transit investments,” says Khani, an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering.

(Adapted from a MnDOT press release, March 1, 2023.)

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