I am Head of Sustainability at freight technology and sustainable freight transport provider Zeus Labs in London, and a Visiting Senior Lecturer at Wits University. Prior to joining Zeus, I was a Senior Research Associate in the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight at Cambridge University and a Fellow in Engineering at Robinson College (where I remain a Senior Member). I received my PhD from Cambridge University, and am a registered Professional Engineer (Mechanical) with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA). I also serve as a Board Member and the Information Officer of the International Forum for Heavy Vehicle Transport & Technology (HVTT Forum). My primary interest is in the decarbonisation of heavy goods vehicles, but I have previously worked in the areas of vehicle dynamics, road safety and computer vision-based odometry and road-user detection systems for HGVs.
Have a look at my publications and bio for more details, or follow one of the links in the sidebar.
Updates
| 2024-04-04 | I have been creditted in the Smart Freight Centre's new electrification guide, "Unlocking Your Carrier's Electrification Buy-in". Read the guide here. |
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| 2024-02-20 | I gave a guest lecture at Imperial College London to students in the MSc Sustainable Energy Futures programme. The lecture covered the key decarbonisation pathways for road freight including efficiency interventions, alternative fuels, and electrification. |
| 2024-02-07 | In a first for the HVTT Forum, I as Information Officer contributed the January 2024 newsletter. Read it here. |
| 2024-01-11 | Parth Deshpande has won the 2023 Helios Prize from the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. The prize was awarded for his paper, 'A breakeven cost analysis framework for electric road systems', which I co-authored. |
| 2023-11-15 | I gave an invited talk on HGV electrification and dynamic charging at the IRTENZ 18th International Conference. [announcement in NZ Trucking] |
| 2023-11-11 | I presented a paper at the 17th International Conference on Heavy Vehicle Transport & Technology (HVTT17) in Brisbane on behalf of lead author Michael Atkins. I co-authored two other papers by Daniel Ainalis and Parth Deshpande. | 2023-10-27 | My correspondence is featured in the Wits Review, the biannual alumni magazine of the University of the Witwatersrand. (See page 6.) [link] [pdf] |
| 2023-10-20 | My commentary on Volta's bankruptcy filing in The Loadstar [link] [pdf] |
| 2023-09-25 | I've been quoted in several media announcements on Zeus' growing demand for sustainable freight [London Loves Business] [Bulletin Reporter] [IT Supply Chain] [FleetPoint] [Bdaily News] |
| 2023-09-21 | My commentary on the PM's backpedaling on key green policies has featured in FleetPoint and Motor Transport [FleetPoint] [pdf] [Motor Transport] [pdf] |
| 2023-09-12 | I presented Zeus' green intermodal case study at a webinar hosted by HFW and Panattoni for the launch of their European Logistics & Supply Chain Sustainability Report 2023 [link to report] |
| 2023-08-08 | I've been quoted in the RHA's Roadway Magazine's August 2023 issue in an article on electric trucking [pdf] |
| 2023-08-02 | My CIWM opinion piece on net zero trucking is the featured article in Freight Carbon Zero's weekly newsletter. [link] [pdf] |
| 2023-07-24 | I've written a short opinion piece on net zero trucking in Circular Online (published by the CIWM). [link] [pdf] |
| 2023-06-26 | I was quoted alongside alongside PepsiCo and Maersk in an article by Transport & Environment on a call for higher EU truck CO2 standards. Zeus was a signatory to the letter to the EU Commission. [T & E article] [pdf] [Climate Group article] [pdf] |
| 2023-06-15 | I chaired a panel discussion on "Roadblocks to sustainable freight - and how to overcome them" at Multimodal 2023 in Birmingham. [watch the session on YouTube] [session info] |
| 2023-06-12 | I've written a short blog post on Scope 3 emissions reporting for logistics. [link] |
| 2023-05-30 | The special issue of the journal Research in Transportation Business & Management on "Decarbonising freight transport: Transitions towards net zero" which I co-guest editted is now available online. Read the editorial here. The full volume can be found here. |
| 2023-05-25 | I joined a panel discussion with Vertical Future at Innovation Zero. We discussed vertical farming opportunities and how this can benefit sustainable logistics and vice versa. [link] |
| 2023-05-21 | I've been quoted in one of the UK's most circulated newspapers on the UK's formal adoption of Longer Semi-trailers. [link] |
| 2023-04-05 | The Load Star article on Zeus joining GLEC. [link] |
| 2023-04-04 | I was interviewed by former Financial Times journalist Mike Scott for an article on net-zero trucking. The article features in Reuters Insight: Sustainable Business. [link] [pdf] |
| 2023-02-01 | I'm very pleased to share that I will soon be joining digital freight management start-up Zeus® - The Future of Freight! The announcement has featured in a number of media releases: [Business Leader] [Net Zero Professional] [Fleet News] [Multimodal] [Freight Business Journal] [Motor Transport] [Freight Carbon Zero] [Truck.co.uk] [TransportXtra] |
| 2023-01-30 | Presentations and recordings of our Electric Road System papers presented at the 9th International Workshop on Sustainable Road Freight are now available online. [publications] |
| 2023-01-04 | I contributed the 'My Robinson' column for the latest edition of Bin Brook, Robinson College's termly magazine. [pdf] |
| 2022-11-21 | I participated in a round table event with UK and Columbian colleagues as part of the Giro Zero initiative funded by the UK PACT Programme [link] |
| 2022-11-16 | I presented some preliminary work on a UK ERS demonstrator at the Transport Research Arena (TRA) conference in Lisbon. [link to paper] |
| 2022-02-15 | I have been elected to the Fellowship of Robinson College, Cambridge, starting 1 March 2022 (Fellow in Engineering). |
| 2022-01-31 | I am guest editing a special issue of the SAIEE Africa Research journal on 'Decarbonisation of road transport in sub-Saharan Africa' (link) |
| 2021-11-11 | I presented on our UK electric road system project at the 8th SRF Workshop. The slides are available here. |
| 2021-10-20 | Papers presented at the HVTT16 symposium in Sep 2021 are now available online. My co-authored contributions are also available here. |
| 2021-10-18 | I've written an updated article on cycle commuting. |
| 2021-07-07 | Our paper on high capacity vehicles for the transport of power station coal has been featured in Mining Weekly. |
| 2021-07-06 | Several papers were presented today in the Freight and Logistics session of the Annual Southern African Transport Conference. The papers can be downloaded here. |
| 2021-06-01 | I have moved to the U.K. to take up a new role as Senior Research Associate in the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight at the University of Cambridge. [link] |
| 2020-11-12 | I hosted a panel discussion on the green tyres testing as part of the CSIR@75 Conference. [link to recording] |
| 2020-04-24 | More coverage of the green tyre trials by the CSIR. [video] |
| 2020-03-09 | More coverage of the green tyre trials by Focus on Transport. [article] |
| 2020-01 | More coverage of the green tyre trials by Wits. [article] [Curiosity magazine] |
| 2019-11 | More coverage of the green tyre trials by the Wits School of Mechanical Engineering. [article] |
| 2019-12-20 | Michelin have launched the official marketing video for the collaborative research effort between Wits, CSIR and Michelin to quantify the fuel saving and carbon emission benefits of low-rolling resistance tyres. [article] [video] |
| 2019-11-08 | The final report of the 2015-17 FALCON study has been published by CEDR. An overview of the full project and deliverables can be found here |
| 2019-07-10 | I presented a paper at SATC 2019, and co-authored a few other papers. |
| 2018-10-04 | I have been appointed to the Board of the International Forum for Road Transport Technology (HVTT Forum) |
| 2018-08-01 | I have been appointed a Visiting Lecturer in the School of Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering at Wits University. I will be lecturing Applied Mechanics A (statics) to second year engineering students. |
| 2018-07-09 | I presented a paper at the 37th Southern African Transport Conference in Pretoria, outlining our lightweight GeoTrack simulation tool. |
| 2018-06-12 | I am now a registered Professional Engineer (Pr.Eng.) (Mechanical) in South Africa. |
| 2018-01-29 | I've published an article in Global Trailer Magazine, on the current state of the "Smart Truck" PBS project in South Africa. |
| 2017-08-17 | I passed my PhD viva with minor corrections! |
| 2017-07-14 | My PhD thesis has been submitted! The title is "Vision-based trailer pose estimation for articulated vehicles". |
| 2017-03-21 | I gave a talk on "Visual odometry for trailer off-tracking estimation" at the Vehicle Dynamics and Control Seminar at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. |
| 2016-11-15 | I presented a paper on "Visual odometry for trailer off-tracking estimation" at HVTT14 in Rotorua, New Zealand. |
| 2016-08-23 | David Cebon, John Woodrooffe and I were part of a successful bid for a CEDR-funded project on "Freight And Logistics in a Multimodal Context" (FALCON). This work will be done as part of a consortium of partner organisations from Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, France and Belgium. |
| 2016-05-13 | I gave a talk on "Trailer off-tracking estimation with stereo vision" at the Dynamics and Vibrations Tea-Time Talks in Cambridge. |
| 2016-03-16 | I gave a talk on "Trailer off-tracking estimation with wide-baseline stereo vision" at the Jesus College Graduate Conference at Jesus College, Cambridge. |
| 2015-09-18 | I presented a paper on "A visual template-matching method for articulation angle measurement" at ITSC 2015 in Las Palmas, Canary Islands. |
| 2015-07-06 | I gave a talk on "Camera-based articulation angle sensing for heavy goods vehicles" at the CUED Division C Graduate Conference at TWI, Cambridge. |
| 2015-03-14 | I gave a talk on "Vision-based articulation angle sensing" at the Jesus College Graduate Conference at Jesus College, Cambridge. (2nd prize, Science and Technology) |
| 2015-03-06 | I gave a talk on "Visual sensing and awareness for heavy goods vehicles" at the Dynamics and Vibrations Tea-Time Talks in Cambridge. |
| 2014-10-30 | A co-authored paper on "Vehicle safety performance improvements using a performance-based standards approach: four case studies" was presented at HVTT13 in San Luis, Argentina. (SAICE Best Paper Award, Transportation Engineering) |
| 2014-07-18 | I presented a poster on "Applications of computer vision systems to heavy goods vehicles" at the CUED Division C Graduate Conference at the Cambridge University Engineering Department. |
| 2014-05-23 | I gave a talk on "Visual sensing of articulation angle" at the Dynamics and Vibrations Tea-Time Talks in Cambridge. |
External sites
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