The Autonomy Journals
The Autonomy Journals showcase leading voices, sharing insights, learnings, lessons and perhaps some confessions from the Autonomy Journey in transport and mobility.
SAMS, a private, non-profit innovation cluster for sustainable, autonomous mobility solutions, host the podcast.
The Autonomy Journals
Unpacking Europe's Freight Challenges with Jan Tore Pedersen from Marlo
Are nearly half of Europe's trucks really driving around empty or only half full? Exploring the benefits of Autonomy in Logistics with Jan-Tore Pedersen. In this episode, Jan-Tore Pedersen, Managing Director for Marlow and founder of MixedMove, discusses the transformative role of autonomy in the logistics sector. We delve into the European Commission’s strategy to shift cargo transport from congested roads to sustainable seas and highlight Norway’s pioneering efforts with autonomous ships and ferries. Pedersen shares insights on optimizing truck load factors through software solutions, reducing emissions and costs. He also presents the innovative concept of using smaller, high-frequency cargo ferries as a shuttle system. Discover how modern technology and autonomous solutions are revolutionizing logistics, easing road congestion, and improving urban livability.
Hear how companies like Marlo, ASKO, Zeabuz and HYKE contribute in transforming the transport to become sustainable.
The Autonomy Journals showcase leading voices, sharing insights, learnings, lessons and perhaps some confessions from the Autonomy Journey in transport and mobility.
Subscribe to the Autonomy Journals and join us next time as we continue exploring how Norway leads the way in autonomous mobility solutions. Because in Norway, we do it.
SAMS is a private, non-profit innovation cluster for sustainable, autonomous mobility solutions and the host of the podcast.
autonomous technologies create future capabilities that we haven't seen yet. It might take a little longer than we thought, but the technology that we need essentially exists.
Arild Tjomsland:Hello and welcome to the Autonomy Journals podcast brought to you by SAMS, the Norwegian Innovation Cluster for Autonomous Mobility and Transport Systems. Autonomy In Norway we do it. We are your hosts, eija and Aril.
Eja Tuominen:I'm leading the Norwegian Innovation Cluster for Sustainable Autonomous Mobility Systems.
Arild Tjomsland:And I'm the founder of a small company in the mobility space, Kobla.
Eja Tuominen:The Autonomy Journals is aimed at inviting you into the autonomous universe of new ideas, innovation, great progress and feedback.
Arild Tjomsland:Translating visions and complexities. One interesting conversation at a time, and we'll offer links and resources to Autonomy sites and news in the credits.
Eja Tuominen:Welcome to this episode of Autonomy Journals. This time, our guest is Jan Tore Pedersen, who is the Managing Director for Marlow and founder of MixedMove and board member for SAMS. He's the managing director for Marlow and the founder of Mixed Move and board member for SAMS. So how are your companies connected to autonomy?
Jan Tore Pedersen:Indirectly. Actually, when I had to choose major at the university 58 years ago, I happened to choose control engineering because it was very popular. In the 90s, I worked in a company doing ships equipment. In the 90s, I worked in a company doing ships equipment. We were then intrigued by the commission's need to move cargo from road to other transport modes, and our choice would then be sea. So we developed cargo handling systems that could move 1,000 containers between ship and shore per hour, and we were then told by the ports that once the containers arrived there, they would stay there for two weeks. So, in addition then to doing the physical cargo handling, we started projects that dealt with managing flow of cargo through logistics operations end to end, and in 97, the company I worked for was sold. Since then, I've essentially worked on my own. We have then started to develop software systems for managing cargo flows. Mixed Move activity, for example, was a direct result of a European project funded to do consolidation of cargo and improve load factors in vehicles and load units, and they were successful because they were taken up by companies like 3M, dhl, schenker and others, and we realized then that we needed to really exploit the potential behind this, and in 2017, we formed the company Mixmove and had external investors, etc.
Jan Tore Pedersen:I thought I would start thinking about Norway more, and when looking at what was happening here, I detected something called SAMS, and I saw an organization that was very focused on technology for autonomy found that quite intriguing. Since the mid-90s, the European Commission has had a mission to move cargo from land to sea, but never been very successful at it. I have, then observed a couple of Norwegian initiatives which are quite interesting, one of them being the one from ASKO that they are using new, what they call drones to move cargo across the Oslo Fjord to autonomous ships. So then I started thinking could these types of autonomous operation bring to a problem that we started to work within the 90s but nobody ever sold, namely moving cargo from land to sea with high volumes?
Eja Tuominen:Tell me about that driving force, that you have the ambition with that one.
Jan Tore Pedersen:The reason I'm still working to put it that way is that I feel that I'm on a venture, working with something interesting, namely helping reduce the emissions and environmental impact of transport and logistics.
Jan Tore Pedersen:That has been the driving force with the forming of Mixed Move, and that is also driving force in other projects that I'm doing.
Jan Tore Pedersen:And I had essentially given up trying to really move cargo to sea in a big way, realizing what the European Commission has been calling motor waste of the sea.
Jan Tore Pedersen:If you then go back and see the shippers those who are really moving goods in Europe, typically fast moving consumer goods they are talking about high frequency, high availability, traceability, visibility and all these types of things, and the maritime world is doing things exactly the opposite direction, because the bigger the ship, the lower the frequency. So if you really want to move cargo to sea, you have to have frequency that can compete with the truck. That means at least daily departures. So how can we achieve that? With new technology, namely small ships going frequently, not necessarily very fast, but very often. What we then started to think about is that, again, normally if you have a ship that typically sails from the Rotterdam area up the Norwegian coast, the same ship goes all the way up to the north before it turns around and goes back down again, and the capacity of that ship is designed to take the maximum cargo which probably is in the distance between Norway and Rotterdam.
Jan Tore Pedersen:The rest of the journey or voyage is rather empty, which is absolutely against the principles I think are important. What if we were taking the approach further and say we're not having the same vessel sailing from Rotterdam to Kirkenes? We are taking one cargo ferry from Rotterdam to a port in Norway. We emptied the vessel completely, we filled it again with cargo going south, and it's a ferry then going back and forth between these two ports.
Eja Tuominen:Like a shuttle.
Jan Tore Pedersen:As a shuttle, as a ferry.
Jan Tore Pedersen:But only taking cargo, only being dedicated to the cargo itself, and then we empty the vessel completely, we do a reorganization of the cargo. Some of the cargo will be distributed locally, other cargo needs to be going further north and then we have another ferry, another shuttle going between two other ports and utilizing the same principles. The resistance to that there are many, but most people say if you are doing cargo handling in ports so often, it's going to take too long, it's going to be too expensive, and then we're back to the SAMS or any other place in Europe for that matter. We would be able to provide services with sufficiently high capacity and frequency that it might be a realistic and real alternative to road transport.
Eja Tuominen:So, if you summarize, what are the obstacles from the cargo owner's point of view to move from trucks? Cargo owners point of view to move from trucks.
Jan Tore Pedersen:Mostly the lack of frequency, lack of availability. As an example, there are about five shipping companies providing services from Norway to the continent. They leave on the same day. You could have had one almost every day, but you have now once a week and that is not attractive to shippers. Integrating maritime transportation into efficient, visible transport operation is still not there. So you need other forms of things, typically visibility and the ability to move and change the movement of cargo as it moves, as you have when you can call a truck driver.
Eja Tuominen:You named a few times the name Asko and I think everyone in Norway knows what Asko is. But could you tell us a little bit about our non-Vivian listeners, about Asko?
Jan Tore Pedersen:Asko is the company that really provides Norway with food. They have operation all over the country south of Oslo and they have the major distribution center, take cargo to Eastern Norway, do customs clearance and consolidation and distributes the cargo throughout the country. They have a problem with Oslo because Oslo is congested. There is also a tunnel underneath the Oslo fjord that has a high frequency of accidents so they could not reliably provide services from one part of the Oslofjord to the other. So they then decided that, despite the fact that there's a ferry service Moss and Horten already already taking trucks, they said we will provide our own autonomous service to vessels sailing between M oss and Hortenand and they will there take only cargo. So they will have electric trucks or electric tractors bringing cargo from their major warehouse to the port in Moss and then they will have the autonomous operation across and then other electric tractors will bring cargo from the port of Horten to a distribution centre on the other side of the fjord.
Eja Tuominen:MixedMove. That is one of your companies that you have founded. What does it do?
Jan Tore Pedersen:The analysis was at the time, around 2010, that almost half the trucks in Europe are driving around empty and the other half is only half full, meaning that a lot of air is being transported. So the conclusion that we came to was that we will try to develop software solutions that increase load factors in trucks. At that time, the logistics director of 3M came to a friend of mine and asked who could help me increase load factors in the trucks that we are moving. So that match was made and we were then in Marlo working with 3M, with their logistics providers like DHL and Schenker, to develop a solution that then helped 3M increase load factors in the vehicles from about 45% to 90%, enabling them to cut 5 million ton kilometers in Europe every year, reducing emissions by half and cost by 30%.
Jan Tore Pedersen:Having resources that are underutilised is not sustainable. Having large ships serving areas with little cargo volumes is not sustainable. So you have to create solutions where you adapt resources to the needs for transportation. Trucks are extremely flexible. We have to do similar things in the maritime sector if we are really going to be a major alternative Replacing large ships with low frequency with smaller ship with high frequency and to cut costs and also to bypass some regulations. We need them to be autonomous and to cut costs and also to bypass some regulations. We need them to be autonomous. The hypothesis is that those types of vessels will definitely be able to attract cargo from land to sea.
Eja Tuominen:I know that you did a pre-study together with SAMS about all the projects that have been done since the 90s to move cargo from land to sea. Did you find out what are the main barriers why those numerous projects haven't succeeded to actually move cargo from land to sea?
Jan Tore Pedersen:My experience is that if you really want change so if you really want to target someone that can make real changes you have to talk to the shippers those you own in cargo, and I've been involved in two projects where radical changes were made. The first one was the company Stora Enso, a forestry company, swedish and Finnish when they changed their logistics operation between the Nordic countries and Europe by creating a new, very innovative maritime operation Still, I think, the most environmentally friendly operation in existence in the world. They did it despite the rail companies, despite the shipping companies, etc. They just pulled it through because they wanted it. There were the other initiatives 3M really wanted to change the way that 3M cargo was flowing around Europe. This combination of them having a need, we having the funding to develop what they needed to do, was a match made in heaven. I have come to the conclusion that if you really want change in logistics, in particular, concentrate on shippers.
Eja Tuominen:That's a very clear message. Do you see a lot of projects where that is taking place?
Jan Tore Pedersen:I don't see many, but that's another reason why I find the ASKO initiative extremely interesting, because ASKO is essentially a shipper, but they have decided also to be their own logistics operation. Operation Moving Goods is tailored to the need that they have, and one of those is to be emission free in 2026.
Eja Tuominen:You mentioned that EU has created strategy already in 1990s I mean that's a while ago, like 30 years ago about motorways.
Jan Tore Pedersen:They invented the concept of motorways of the sea, trying then to inspire similar type of corridors to be made on water. But this conflict almost between the maritime thinking that you only think key to key and not door to door doesn't match with the ability and the need for moving goods with high frequencies on land. But with the new emerging technologies, autonomous type operation, the new emerging technologies, autonomous type operation, the ability to automate shipping services and port operations, it may be time for revamping, so to speak, the idea of moving freigth to sea, and that's why we are now taking initiatives and starting projects where we are beginning a path of realizing this network of shuttles or cargo ferries bringing cargo on long distance but also feedering to smaller ports, creating a hub-and-spoke network at sea that is very, very typical and very well implemented on land.
Eja Tuominen:So hub-and-spoke. Just explain it in simple terms.
Jan Tore Pedersen:So hub and spoke meant essentially that you are having large cargo volume between big nodes in a network, and then the local services served by smaller vessels or other vehicles for local distribution.
Eja Tuominen:Would this thinking be applicable in other locations in the world?
Jan Tore Pedersen:UK and Ireland have long coasts that are underexploited. It's a lot of congestions on roads from the Aberdeen Peninsula to Rotterdam. Similarly, could be easily used waterways. In Asia in particular, waters is a very attractive mode of transportation when we are able to demonstrate and operate the type of things we're talking about. They have a tremendous export potential.
Eja Tuominen:In Norway, all the big cities are located by a waterway because that was the historical way of transporting goods and people. Is that the case globally?
Jan Tore Pedersen:Of course transporting goods and people is the case globally, almost? I mean, if you look at Europe. I mean, if you look at China, Shanghai, and Tokyo on the coast, the potential for moving goods on water is tremendous.
Eja Tuominen:Thinking of the people who live in the cities. What are the benefits for a person living there, not working in the logistics, if the goods move from trucks to the river or to the sea, from trucks to the river or to the sea?
Jan Tore Pedersen:If we were able to have a proper freight transport by water from the city of Drammen, which is about 30 kilometres west of Oslo, to Oslo, we could probably remove up to 5,000 vehicles per day. There are about more than 10,000 freight vehicles going between these two cities every day and specifically these days when the traffic is really piling up, that type of service could have a major impact on traffic flows and therefore also the livability of the people near the city and potentially in the city.
Eja Tuominen:And you think of congestion or are there other benefits?
Jan Tore Pedersen:then In Norway we have a major transfer to electric cars. You still have emissions somewhere, but they're not local, it's somewhere else. Traffic is another matter. If you currently have a situation where resources assets are utilised only to 50 percent, if you were able to fill it to 100%, you could cut half of the freight vehicles, which would definitely be a benefit to those who are living and moving in cities. If you are carefully thinking about high-frequency maritime services, there's a lot of potential to be achieved in many parts of the world. The role in this is not to provide technology but to try to create an environment in which it can be used.
Jan Tore Pedersen:In the maritime sector, norway has a very strong position, has always had, both as an operator of vessels and also provider of technologies.
Jan Tore Pedersen:So if we use that situation to really come up with larger projects in the line we just talked about, it would cement the autonomy, competitiveness of Norwegian technology and we would definitely be able to provide a significant export potential for it export potential for it.
Jan Tore Pedersen:Some of the companies in Norway are quite large, like Kongsberg, and they obviously have their segment that they're working with and they are already internationally positioned. We have other companies, like Seabus and Hike, that also have technology that might be applied in this area. They are small and they definitely need the ambition and the help to have export these types of things and I think the combination of the type of activities that Kongsport does, which are larger ship, longer distance operations, et cetera, with the type of Zeabuz and Hyke, which are shorter distance, smaller vessels, that combination would be very nice in the context of the hope and spoke activity we're talking about. Also, in the automation of ports, there are the opportunities of other Norwegian players becoming quite active. Most of activities here are still automatic guided vehicles moving containers within large container ports. The ability then to handle cargo in other forms of transport, like row-row, roll-off, roll-on vessels and shifting cargo in small spaces in ports is absolutely an opportunity for Norwegian autonomy technology providers if they want to.
Eja Tuominen:So you would position Norway very high on the map in the maritime autonomous technology.
Jan Tore Pedersen:Absolutely, as you say in this podcast, in Norway, we do it. So what are the hinders in moving to this autonomous technology? Absolutely, as you say in this podcast, in Norway, we do it.
Eja Tuominen:So what are the hinders in moving to this autonomous technology?
Jan Tore Pedersen:It has to do with culture. One of the areas that has a history of being challenging is the dialogue between the ship operators and the port operators and the labor unions relating to transport activities. I was once in a project working in Italy. We were using automatic guided vehicles to load and unload ships, cargo from ships, and we were going to do a demonstration in Geneva On the day when the big show should start. We were stopped by the workers in the port. They would not accept automatic loading and unloading of row-row vessels. If we want this to happen, we have to very early start to have all stakeholders related to ports involved in these decisions. Without that, it would never work.
Eja Tuominen:And what would be the key success?
Jan Tore Pedersen:factors, then the success factor is really providing services that are attractive to those who move goods, to really convince them that these are alternatives that they can rely on. So in addition to providing all the technology, the vessels, etc. Etc. Creating credibility on a large scale for these types of services is probably another major challenge.
Eja Tuominen:Do you see risks connected to automated operations or risks on the way in getting there?
Jan Tore Pedersen:Not, particularly Having worked in R&D, research and development product development for 50 years almost Risks. We're also always able to accommodate those one way or the other. It might take a little longer than we thought, but the technology that we need essentially exists. It's applying in the new areas, which is really the thing. Operational issues I'm sure we can solve them because we're not changing much. It's more about both a willingness to take the initiative. So we have to find the champions out there that really can see the same potentials as we can. So visualizing that potential and make it shown what these benefits really are, that is what we have to start to do.
Eja Tuominen:So if there are any goods owners out there listening to this who want to be part of the transformation for a more sustainable transport, just take contact with Jan Tore, or SAMS, for that matter. So we have the final question. You know we ask this from all our guests and it's more of the personal nature. It's only between you and me. So what is, jan-tore? Your autonomy confession?
Jan Tore Pedersen:I'm not really sure that I have one. I've worked with control of dynamic systems for almost 60 years now. It has made me understand that most things are dynamic. Autonomy is about creating services on their own but that can actively and effectively link to others, creating a system solution that is better than what is there currently. I'm not sure it's a confession, but at least it's a belief that we can make autonomous technologies create future capabilities that we haven't seen yet and that will make life better for people, even if they can't see it currently.
Eja Tuominen:Thank you for that, and I'm thinking actually of one more question, it's a bonus question. You have a really long career within logistics and you're, very rightly very proud about it. When can you say you started with the journey?
Jan Tore Pedersen:I've always been grasping opportunities. I think it's the best way to say it. I hardly did the same thing twice. When I then saw that I was able to bridge the gap between the dream of really moving cargo to sea with the history I had in control engineering by then adopting current modern, autonomous developments I jumped at the chance and I'm not going to give in until I've seen that it may or may not work, or I'm not able to do it anymore.
Eja Tuominen:Thank you, Jan-Tore, for joining us and being our guest at Autonomy Journals and sharing your long experience, your insights and your vision about autonomy in logistics.
Arild Tjomsland:To our listeners. Thanks so much for tuning in. Join us again for the next episode of the Autonomy Journals brought to you by SAMS, the Norwegian Innovation Cluster for Autonomous Mobility and Transport Systems. Autonomy In Norway we do it.
Eja Tuominen:If you like the sound of this, please subscribe to the podcast and follow the Autonomy Journals on Spotify and other channels. We'd love to hear from you. Tell us what you'd love to hear more about around autonomy, Because in Norway we do it.