Timeline as part of the project: From A to green a future vision of coachworks

During the first couple of weeks a time-line was developed in order to have a general overview of the system of transportation of goods and commodities and understand its evolution through time. With this information it is possible to identify the most relevant forces, trends and drivers for the future of this system as well as Combigroep’s position within the system. It is intended to draw systematic conclusions from this iterative time-line.

The next table explains the structure and the criteria to elaborate the time-line:

• Topic: Transportation of goods and commodities
• Time: Between Industrial Revolution and 2040
• Context: Europe, PEST factors and environmental concerns
• Geographical scope: Between local to continental, including national. (Excluding intercontinental)
• Subtopics (lines): Air + Land (road & rail) + Water (river & sea)

Firstly a set of goals and criteria were established on a drawn line and the most important milestones of power source were added. A grading was selected to describe the impact of each context fact. Then, five means were identified within the freight transportation and investigated about products and typologies, capacity, distance/speed and working principles. After organizing all the gathered information it was possible to analyze projections for the future and position Combigroep within the overall context.

Initial conclusions:

The timeline displays a complex system (Weaver, 1948) that consists out of different aspects like:

• Shortening time intervals on which data is distributed;
• Five different ways of transportation: Air, road, rail, inland waterways and sea – and their respective impact (Transport of goods, performance by mode in EU25 – 1995-2020 (billion tkm).
• Environmental awareness, emissions, energy sources and their impact.
• The system is used as a data source in the sense that no information can be altered or stopped.
• The system has momentum. Because it has its own moving strength it cannot be stopped in one single action/decision. Any change in the system has to be gradual.

Related posts:

• Context mapping (part 1): Observation
• Context mapping (part 2): Personas
• Context mapping (part 3): Mobility Diary

Javier Ricardo Mejia Sarmiento