A comprehensive study is presented of the Capacitated Multi DepotGreen Vehicle Routing Problem (CMDGVRP) applied to a heterogeneous fleet of electronic waste collecting vehicles with two objectives: to reduce the total fuel consumption of the vehicles (environmental sustainability) and to limit the continuous drive-time of the drivers (social sustainability). Research has been limited from this aspect, and in this study, the focus is on the practical application of pickup and delivery of electronic waste. The study also presents results for the online dynamic routing variant of this problem, where traffic congestion appears mid-route. A detailed analysis and parameter optimization has been done for Simulated Annealing, Genetic algorithm(GA), along with more advanced variants like Non-dominated Sorting GA (NSGA II), NSGA III, UNSGA III, and Indicator-Based Selection Evolutionary Algorithm (IBEA). Additionally, the Gini index is used to create a multi-objective model, which is novel in the context of CMDGVRP to the best of our knowledge. The use of the Gini index in the field of CMDGVRP shows excellent potential in balancing environmental, economic, and social sustainability. An extension of the CMDGVRP is introduced where vehicles can visit dropoff locations mid-route and then continue with a new route. This implementation is novel to our knowledge and is named Drop-and-continue. It is shown to increase the performance on large datasets. Results are presented from realistic simulation studies on a public dataset, with varying route lengths and vehicle fleet sizes, along with a real-world dataset from a waste collection company in Sweden. The results show that the optimal choice of algorithm depends on the dataset size and if there is a maximum budget of evaluations or computation time. Realistic problems are solved in a matter of a few seconds, given that they are initiated well. Simulated Annealing and Genetic algorithm prove to be very competitive in the case of large problems and limited computation time budget.

This thesis presents an analysis and confrontation of the classical and current strategic naval thinking aimed to discover whether the classical theories of naval power are still relevant for the current strategic thinking of the United States of America and operational conduct of the U.S. Navy. This is done by creating a theoretical analytical framework based on the analysis of the works of two chosen classical naval thinkers Admiral A.T. Mahan and Sir Julian S. Corbett. This theoretical framework is then applied to the analysis of the current American strategic documents: National Security Strategy, National Military Strategy and Naval Strategy. By applying the theoretical framework to the analysis of these documents, the thesis will confirm or disproof the relevance of the classical naval thought to the current one. The thesis further continues to apply the theoretical framework to the part of the thesis, which analyses the Pacific Fleet of the United States and their area of responsibility in order to identify the strategic challenges that the Pacific Fleet encounters in its area of responsibility. Further analysis is focused on identifying and evaluating the reactions of the Pacific Fleet to the identified challenges.

The level of autonomation and the number situations which an autonomous vehicle can handle continuously increases. However, even fully autonomous vehicles will need human support, especially when system failures occur. Remote operations enables vehicles to operate autonomously when possible and keeps the human in the loop to assist when needed by allocating them to a remote operating center (ROC). It is a new field within autonomous trucks and little research has thus been conducted on the topic. By taking an approach from the fields of aviation and maritime, where remote operations has been researched for longer, the study aims to transfer knowledge to road freight and to enable remote operations at a management mode. The focus of the study is thus to investigate which information is important for the remote operator (RO) when manual procedures are automated, and to define recommendations for how a ROC could be designed from a human-automation teamwork and situational awareness perspective. The results of the conducted interviews find that the RO first and foremost needs information regarding failures of the automation, including how the failures could be solved. However, it also confirms previous research emphasizing interactive interfaces to avoid passive monitoring, as that is likely to cause an out-of-the-loop problem. Furthermore, recommendations which could be defined regarding the design of a ROC include incorporating both verbal and digital communicational abilities, and the possibility to collaborate, both internally and externally. Lastly, the results show an importance to differentiate between different modes of remote operations in the ROC to remain clear of the responsible actor and avoiding automation surprise.

<p>The research effort addressed important gaps in the modeling to simulate Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations and couple optimization analyses for vehicle design, fleet allocations, and operational choices for next generation urban travel. Urban Air Mobility is expected to be a \$1 trillion dollar industry by 2040, but operators and designers have limited models and tools to estimate fleet performance, cost metrics, emissions performance, and profit for a given concept under future concepts of operations. A review of the literature reveals 14 modeling gaps related to infrastructure, operations, airspace, vehicles, and customers. In addition, the UAM industry requires better understanding of how operational choices may impact vehicle design and fleet allocations in a market with significant economic barriers and infrastructure needs. To address those needs, this effort proposed alternatives to address modeling challenges and develop studies to evaluate UAM vehicle concepts and concepts of operations in ways once not possible using the enhanced modeling tools. The research findings revealed that modeling coupled design/fleet and operational choices can affect daily profitability potential by 2-4\times\, for piloted and autonomous operations and affect the fleet size from between 12-50 vehicles across small, medium, and large metropolitan areas. The modeling capability provided by the improvements in UAM operations simulations and accessing vehicle and fleet metrics enables future studies to address UAM in a holistic manner. The increased capability could benefit the UAM community and inform future operations and concepts of operations in preparation for ubiquitous operations.</p>

För att nå internationella såväl som nationella miljömål står samhället inför en omfattande omställning av fordonsflottan. Utfasningsutredningen (2021) redogör i sin rapport för hur samtliga aktörer i samhället behöver vidta åtgärder för att bidra till måluppfyllnad. En central aktör som i dagsläget vidtar åtgärder är fordonstillverkare som med ett varierande tidsspann har förmedlat ambitionen om att enbart producera fordon med nollnettoutsläpp inom spannet 2030 – 2035. Fordonstillverkarnas omställning kommer att få konsekvenser för andra samhälleliga aktörer som är beroende av en tillförlitlig fordonsflotta i syfte att genomföra sitt uppdrag, en av dessa aktörer är polismyndigheten. Syftet med denna uppsats är att kartlägga vilka främjande samt hindrande faktorer som finns för implementering av en fossilfri fordonsflotta i dagsläget. Ett särskilt fokus kommer i uppsatsen att vara polisregion Nord som med sina geografiska förutsättningar upptar 55% av Sveriges yta, samtidigt som 26 av Sveriges 30 mest glesbefolkade kommuner återfinns inom regionen. För att kartlägga förutsättningarna ska uppsatsen utifrån implementeringsteoretiska utgångspunkterna förstå, vilja och kunna studera dokument och genomföra intervjuer med relevanta aktörer från nationell, regional samt polisområdesnivå. I dagsläget framgår det av kartläggningen att en fossilfri fordonsflotta inom polismyndigheten snarare är en utopi än en realistisk framtid. Ingen av de valda teoretiska utgångspunkterna förstå, vilja och kunna kan i dagsläget betraktas som helt uppfyllda. I de fall åtgärder inte vidtas kan myndighetens operativa förmåga komma att bli begränsad, vilket kommer särskilt hårt mot polisregion Nord och dess invånare. / To achieve international as well as national environmental targets, society is facing a major shift in the vehicle fleet. Utfasningsutredningen (2021) sets out how all actors in society need to take action to contribute to meet the targets. A key actor currently taking action is vehicle manufacturers. With varying timeframes, several manufacturers have communicated the ambition to produce only vehicles with zero net emissions within the range 2030 - 2035. The transition of vehicle manufacturers will have implications for other societal actors that depend on a reliable vehicle fleet to carry out their mission, one of these actors being the police authorities. The aim of this paper is to identify the facilitators and barriers to the implementation of a fossil-free vehicle fleet in the present time. A special focus will be the police region North which with its geographical conditions occupies 55% of Sweden's surface, where 26 of Sweden's 30 most sparsely populated municipalities are found in the region. To map the conditions, the paper will study documents and conduct interviews with relevant actors from national, regional and police area level based on implementation theory regarding the concepts understanding, will and being able to. At present, the thesis shows that a fossil-free vehicle fleet in the police authority is more of a utopia than a realistic future. None of the implementation theoretical starting points can be considered as fully met at present. If no action is taken, the operational capability of the authority may be limited, which will have a particular impact on the Northern police region and its inhabitants.

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Personbilsflottan står för en stor andel av de globala CO2-utsläppen och genom vidare implementering av alternativa drivmedel kan transportsektorn i framtiden bli mer hållbar. Tekniken kring elbilar vad gäller bland annat batteriets kapacitet och bilens prestanda har under de senaste decenniet gjort stora framsteg där elbilen idag är direkt konkurrerande med en bil driven på fossila bränslen i många avseenden. Denna rapport kartlägger de drivande faktorer och hinder som elektrifieringen av personbilsflottan står inför utifrån tre perspektiv; elbilens batteri, laddningsinfrastrukturen och politiska styrmedel. Metoden för arbetet har varit en litteraturstudie samt en enkätstudie där resultatsammanställningen av varje perspektiv underströk vilka de kritiska faktorerna är. Vad gäller elbilsbatteriet visar resultaten att prisutvecklingen tillsammans med den tekniska utvecklingen av batterierna är en stor drivande kraft. Däremot är den begränsade körsträckan och batteriets känslighet vad gäller degradering av batterihälsa ett hinder. Fortsättningsvis visar resultaten att laddning som till stor andel kommer ske i hemmet är en stor drivande kraft som minimerar vikten av de hinder som består i höga investeringskostnader och påfrestningar på elnätet. Enkätstudiens resultat visar att individer ej uppfattar elbilens kortare körsträcka eller laddning som ett problem i lika stor utsträckning som litteraturstudien föreslog. Det framgick att en stor drivande kraft är politiska styrmedel då resultatet stödjer att en klar majoritet av enkätdeltagarna skulle köpt en elbil om köpkostnaden hade varit densamma som för en bensin-/dieseldriven bil. En diskussion om omställningen till el i utsläppstunga industrier inklusive transportsektorn visar att störst förändring kan ske i länder så som Sverige, Finland och Island där ländernas elmix till stor andel utgörs av renproducerad el. Avslutningsvis konstateras det att synergieffekter av utvecklingen bör tas till vara på och applicerar i andra industrier där en utökad elektrifiering är möjlig. / The passenger car fleet accounts for a large proportion of global CO2 emissions and through further implementation of alternative fuels, the transport sector can become more sustainable in the future. The technology of electric cars in terms of performance and battery capacity has, in the last decade, made great progress where the electric car today is directly competing with a car driven on fossil fuels in many respects. This report identifies the driving factors and obstacles that the electrification of the passenger car fleet faces from three perspectives; electric car battery, charging infrastructure and political instruments. The method for the work has been a literature study as well as a survey study where the results compilation of each perspective emphasized what the critical factors are. With regard to the electric car battery, the results show that the price trend together with the technical development of the batteries is a major driving force. However, the limited mileage and the sensitivity of the battery to degradation of battery health is an obstacle. Continuing, the results show that charging, which to a large extent will take place in the home, is a major driving force that minimizes the weight of the obstacles that consist in high investment costs and stress on the electricity grid. The results of the survey show that individuals do not perceive the shorter driving distance or charge of the electric car as a problem to the same extent as the literature study suggested. It turned out that a major driving force is political instruments as the result supports that a clear majority of the survey participants would have bought an electric car if the purchase cost had been the same as for a gasoline / diesel driven car. A discussion of the transition to electricity in emission-heavy industries, including the transport sector, shows that the greatest change can take place in countries such as Sweden, Finland and Iceland, where the countries' electricity mix is ​​largely made up of clean electricity. Finally, it is stated that synergy effects of the development should be exploited and applied in other industries where increased electrification is possible.

Driven by recent technical advances, vehicle-based transportation systems in intralogistics are currently shifting from automated guided vehicles (AGVs) to autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Unlike AGVs, AMRs are not bound to a physical or virtual track and autonomously determine their movements. While the increase in freedom for routing leads to improvements in terms of system flexibility and scalability, it also poses new challenges in terms of coordination and thus the high-performance routing behavior of an entire fleet. Accepted and widely used algorithms in the AGV field are often barely applicable to large fleets of free-ranging AMRs, while typical algorithms from the field of mobile robotics usually focus on different objectives. This thesis presents a novel concept for determining global routes, the so-called lanemap, that enables the synchronized movements of multiple free-ranging vehicles in arbitrary layouts without increasing calculation effort during online operations. The basic idea consists in creating a lanemap offline that provides the AMRs with a set of suggested global lanes from various starting positions to different destinations. On the one hand, the application of a lanemap lowers each AMRs’ individual degree of freedom. However, coordinating lanes sensibly beforehand enables short travel distances as well as a low probability of routing conflicts, which improves the performance of the entire AMR fleet on the other hand. Since the lanemap only provides an offline calculated global route as suggestion, the concept can be combined with any established online approach, such as a local conflict avoidance/resolution approach, or with in-depth coordination of all vehicle movements. This thesis presents a theoretical mathematical model and a practically applicable heuristic approach for the creation of a lanemap. As proof of concept, simulation experiments show that the heuristic is generally capable of creating lanemaps for all different kinds of layouts. Furthermore, the concept allows for the determination of customized routes for a specific fleet size and an anticipated transportation demand. Therefore, once system requirements are known, a beneficial set of lanemaps for typical constellations can be calculated in advance and integrated into routing as needed.

Ukraine’s foreign policy has puzzled observers since the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to its unusual inconsistency. This inconsistency exhibited itself in contradictory decisions by the Ukrainian executive carried out within a short period of time, which signalled either greater cooperation with Russia and relative cooling of relations with the West, or integration into Western institutions and worsening of the relations with Moscow. This study aims to explain the inconsistency by examining the sources of Ukraine’s foreign policy through process-tracing in four policy cases: Ukraine’s renouncement of nuclear weapons (1991-1994), the status of the Black Sea Fleet (1991-1997), the Odesa-Brody pipeline (2002-2004), and the 2006-2009 gas disputes. Contrary to dominant interpretations of Ukraine’s foreign policy vacillation that emphasise the role of external influences, especially that of Russia and the West, this study concludes that Ukraine’s inconsistent foreign policy decisions are best explained by domestic factors – intra-executive divisions and the influence of vested interests on policy-making. The work relies on the use of primary sources including archival research, elite interviews, and Ukrainian and Russian newspaper reports.

A racionalização no uso dos recursos sempre foi uma preocupação dos gestores de empresas e com a crescente competitividade entre essas organizações, faz-se necessário, portanto, um controle minucioso dos custos. Empresas do ramo florestal lidam todos os dias com problemas desde o nível estratégico, como a decisão de em quais regiões realizarem o plantio das árvores, até o nível operacional, que tem maior impacto sobre as operações diárias e que envolve as decisões de transporte de madeira. Nesse sentido, o investimento em ferramentas que garantam maior eficiência do transporte diário de madeira é considerado como ponto de partida para que essas organizações possam sustentar sua competitividade no mercado. Dessa forma, esta dissertação tem como objetivo dimensionar, através de um modelo de simulação, a frota de caminhões utilizada para o transporte diário de madeira em uma indústria de papel e celulose, com vistas a permitir um fluxo coordenado e constante de matéria prima, comparando o sistema atual com um sistema baseado em uma nova lógica de despacho de caminhões aplicada ao simulador. O modelo de simulação desenvolvido foi construído através do software ARENA® e conta com uma interface de dados construída com o auxílio do Microsoft Excel®, na qual são inseridos, de maneira estruturada, os dados de entrada necessários. Com este modelo, pretende-se auxiliar na solução de um problema operacional de transporte de madeira, uma vez que é possível determinar, em um horizonte de planejamento previamente definido, o tamanho da frota capaz de atender a uma demanda programada, permitindo maior eficiência ao sistema e redução de desperdícios. / The rational use of resources has always been a concern of business managers and the growing competition between companies requires a complex control of costs. Companies in the forestry sector deal with everyday problems from the strategic level, the decision on which regions make the planting of trees, to the operational level, which has a greater impact on the daily operations and decisions involving timber transport. Accordingly, investment in tools that ensure higher efficiency of daily transportation of wood is considered as the starting point for these organizations to sustain their competitiveness in the market. Thus, this thesis is designed to measure, through a simulation model, the fleet of trucks used for daily transportation of wood into a pulp and paper industry, with a view to providing coordinated and constant flow of raw material. The developed simulation model was built by ARENA ® software and has a data interface built with the help of Microsoft ® Excel, in which the input data required are inserted. With this model, we intend to assist in the solution of an operating problem of timber transport, since it is possible to determine the fleet size able to attend a scheduled demand, allowing the system more efficient and reduce waste, in a planning horizon previously defined.