Using the concept of "Digital Twin" models to gain a true understanding of your fuel economy and how return on investment assessment becomes built into your daily process.

2. Session Information
Presenter: Lloyd Palum CTO, Vnomics Corp
Tuesday, October 18
3:10pm – 4:10pm
Medium- and Heavy-Duty Session
Equipment Testing: Do You Get Meaningful Results?
This session will explain the importance of validating equipment supplier fuel
efficiency company claims, by truly measuring and understanding real world fuel
in/fuel out and not just reading ECM data. The session will be presented by a
representative from Vnomics and will focus on the importance of using statistical
process control techniques along with real world fleet performance data to effectively
evaluate the impact of equipment on fleet fuel performance.

3. Equipment Testing: Do You Get
Meaningful Results?
Lloyd Palum, CTO
lpalum@vnomicscorp.com
http://www.vnomicscorp.com/

4. What we will cover today
1.The importance of accurate measurement
2.Isolating the variable effects of the delivery
task and driving behavior from the truck.
3.Establishing and tracking truck performance
baselines to use in evaluating any change of
operations or equipment and its effect on
fuel economy

5. Good Advice...on testing
“Don’t fall in love with a single test—that holds true for fleets
and manufacturers. One test is just that: one test, Multiple
tests allow you to look for trends in test data. That’s where we
think the most confidence in a [efficiency] number can be
found, and then take that number and adjust it to each fleet’s
real-world operation.”
Mike Roeth, Executive Director of the NACFE
Link to Fleet Equipment Article - Is your fleet’s fuel efficiency improving?

6. Fuel Efficiency Testing
Testing Methods
Computer Model Fluid Dynamics
Wind Tunnel
Test Track
Road Testing
Fleet Composite
Real World Factors
Weather
Road surfaces & grade
Vehicle maintenance level
Utilization profile (duty-cycle)
Manufacturing tolerances
Vehicle configuration
Vehicle and component age
Driver behavior
Measurement system
precision/accuracy
NACFE Fuel Efficiency Report
Link to NACFE Report

7. Key Distinction for Today’s Talk
Controlled Tests
• Lock down the conditions (test
tracks)
• Explicit assumptions
• Set up A/B comparisons
• Single point in time
• Expensive. Ties up assets that
should be delivering freight
• Little correlation to your actual
fleet operations and vehicles
Fleet Composite Tests
• Continuous/Constant
• Using real-world vehicles in
real-world operations gives
real-world data!
• “What if “ analysis (digital
modeling) using real world
data.
Benefit of connected trucking
[IOT]. GE does this with
locomotives and jets. It's also
possible with trucks!

8. Fuel Measurement
precision and accuracy matter

9. Fuel Flow vs. ECM Calculations
“fuel consumption data in
an ECM is derived from
an algorithm and not
from actual fuel flow...
there is an inherent
error with those
calculations.” - Yves
Provencher Pitt Group
http://fleetowner.com/maintenan
ce/certifying-fuel-savings
4 % to 6 % Error
Fleets work hard for percentage
point improvements in fuel
economy. Hard to see if you have
> 1% error in measurement!

10. Illustrating the difference...
Actual Fuel Rate
Sometimes higher
(more fuel quoted)
Sometimes lower
(less fuel quoted)
Eliminate Measurement
bias with fuel flow rate

11. Isolate Fuel Factors
routes, drivers and trucks

12. Fuel Economy Factors
•The Delivery Task - load, route, traffic,
weather
•The Driver - engine control, acceleration,
idling, speed
• The Truck - make, model, year, drivetrain
configuration, aerodynamics, tires,
maintenance cycle, etc.
The end game is to isolate the truck from
these other factors so any tests or changes can
be assessed without bias/influence.

13. Today’s Example Fleet Dataset
Example Fleet
124 Trucks of
various makes
models and
years. Real
world
composition!
• FREIGHTLINERS 2002 - 2017
–Cascadia, Columbia
• PETERBILT 2007 - 2016
–386, 579
• KENWORTH 2005 - 2016
–T880, T680

14. Fleet MPG Distribution
More than 65,000
Trips
[key on to key off]
Multimodal
distribution
MPG - “it depends”
Do you know your
trip MPG?

15. Classification of Trips
•IDLE - high idle percentage. A task associated
with yard/dock dwell would fall into this
category.
•CITY - frequent stops and less than highway
average speed characterize these trips.
•HIGHWAY - infrequent (no) stops and an
average speed that is indicative of highway
driving.

16. Isolating the Trip Type
Key part of
isolating the
delivery task
IDLE
1.01 MPG Avg
CITY
4.46 MPG Avg
HIGHWAY
7.34 MPG Avg

17. The critical task: Actual vs.
Potential
Isolate Driver’s Behavior
• Engine Control
• Speed Control
• Idling Control
Account for truck configuration
• Engine RPM vs. Differential
Ratio at Highway speeds
(gearing)
“How do you do that?”
Capturing sensor data on every trip and every truck, modeling
(learning) what is possible vs. what is actually happening in each of
the above dimensions. This allows us to understand not only the
MPG but also the “Potential” MPG (of course a higher number) if we
were able to account for these sources of waste (loss).

18. How to Isolate the Truck’s Fuel Economy
Model the Waste
Factors
“digital twins”
-
Sensor
Measurements
Real World
Factors...
Actual
MPG
(measured)
Potential
MPG
(modeled)

19. Actual (blue) vs. Potential (green)
Green distribution is the fleet’s
MPG isolated from driver and
truck configuration
effects on average 0.26 MPG
difference.
Potential MPG -
green distribution
(waste removed)
Actual MPG -
blue distribution

20. Specific truck and trips
0.27 MPG Diff
0.56 MPG Diff
0.02 MPG Diff

21. Specific Truck and Trips

22. Statistical Baseline
“digital twin” for each truck

23. Statistical Control of MPG
The key is to “know” what your trucks are
capable of in real world operations and using
that understanding to introduce changes in a
controlled fashion to “prove” whether a given
change is or is not beneficial for your fleet. No
longer relying on anecdotal evidence that may
or may not translate to your trucks or your
operations.

24. Moving Average on 2 Trucks
FREIGHTLINER Columbia Eaton Fuller RTLO-16913A Manuals
Introduce
change
here...
Measure
Fuel Before vs. Fuel After
With visibility across the fleet down to a specific truck, at any moment in time you can
assess a potential change or react to an unintended consequence on fuel economy by
having a baseline of “true” fuel understanding with which to control your fleet’s fuel
efficiency.
Truck B 2017
Truck A 2016
Highway Potential MPG
0.8 MPG Avg.
Difference.
Ask Why

25. What we covered today
Fuel expense is a never ending consideration in profitably managing a fleet.
Having visibility and control over the fuel use on your trucks requires three
key factors:
• Measurement must be accurate/precise and fine grained enough to
know exactly how much fuel is actually burned/used on each and every
trip.
• Isolating the truck from the variable factors of driving behavior and the
delivery task allows you to form a statistical baseline of truck
performance.
• Creating and maintaining a baseline of statistical control for each truck
is the key to being able to assess fuel efficiency over time and under
specific changes in equipment or operations.
The outcome: ROI assessment on Fuel Economy investment
becomes built into your daily process.

26. Thanks for listening!
lpalum@vnomicscorp.com