## 2 Materials and Methods
### Selection of Transportation Routes  
Local distribution is often carried out by large freight forwarders such as UPS, Amazon or DHL. They mostly use small trucks with a total weight of up to 3.5 t, with daily distances of a few 100 km. This segment of road transport has increased considerably in recent years and is therefore justifiably the subject of many comprehensive scientific publications relating to vehicle technology, routes and electric refueling [16; 17; 33]. We were interested in the more complex and, to date, less extensively investigated medium road freight transport with a total weight of up to 25 t and daily distances up to a maximum of 1,000 km. The focus was on tours that are driven within one day (as already mentioned, multi-day trips would have involved too many assumptions, which would have limited the informative value and generalizability of our work). Table 2 and Figures 3 and 4 show the details of two tours carried out daily by the forwarding agent. The routes are always the same, whereas the payload varies slightly depending on the order. Typical days were selected. More details can be found in the supplementary data [34]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Acronym** & **Drive** & **Energy Storage** \\ \hline BEV & Electric motor & Battery \\ FCEV & Electric motor & H\({}_{2}\) fuel cell with tank and battery \\ ICEV-CNG & ICEV running on CNG & CNG tank \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Drive and energy storage technologies considered in the simulation model [31]. Figure 2: Energy flow diagram of the BEV and FCEV driving cycle model [31]. Figure 4: Truck speed and elevation profile of the long tour [34]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Tour Parameter** & **Short-Tour** & **Long-Tour** \\ \hline Date of transport & 18 July 2023 & 24 July 2023 \\ \hline Starting time & 04:46:15 & 00:10:26 \\ \hline Time at end of tour & 12:34:12 & 12:07:41 \\ \hline Duration of tour (h) & 7.80 & 11.95 \\ \hline Distance (km) & 330.87 & 621.17 \\ \hline Elevation of starting/end point (m a.s.l.) & 458.4 & 305.4 \\ \hline Max. elevation point (m a.s.l.) & 659.1 & 481.9 \\ \hline Accumulated elevation meters (m) & 2,002.1 & 3,035.0 \\ \hline Truck type & DAF XF 480 & DAF XG 480 \\ \hline Drive technology & ICEV & ICEV \\ \hline Fuel (reality) & Diesel & Diesel \\ \hline Fuel (simulation) & CNG & CNG \\ \hline Payload (kg) & 5,100 & 4,000 \\ \hline Total weight (ICEV truck) (kg) & 20,097 & 19,327 \\ \hline Max. speed (km/h) & 88.0 & 92.0 \\ \hline Max. acceleration (m/s\({}^{2}\)) & 0.47 & 0.52 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Parameters of the forwarding tours examined (for more details, see Tables S7 and S8 of [34]). Figure 3: Truck speed and elevation profile of the short tour [34]. The tour and vehicle operating data are recorded via a built-in recording system, which also includes a comprehensive GPS navigation system. These data are recorded almost to the second, stored and continuously transmitted to the forwarder's control center via a satellite-based remote data transmission system. The instantaneous truck speed, which is particularly relevant for consumption, is determined in two independent ways: firstly, from the GPS data, and secondly, by an incremental encoder integrated in the truck's transmission, which measures the drive axle rotation. Together with the tire tread depth measured at short intervals, a speed and distance signal can be derived from this. The associated height profiles of the forwarding tours provided by the GPS navigator proved to be less accurate in a cross-check. The assignment of GPS coordinates and altitude values was not precise enough. The values available as decimal degree coordinates therefore first had to be converted into UTM coordinates before the exact altitude values could be assigned to them using a worldwide geodetic database [35; 36] (see the elevation profiles in Figures 3 and 4).