Tour based and supply chain modeling for freight: integrated model demonstration in Chicago

Abstract

Despite recent advances in freight and commercial vehicle modeling, the current state of the practice methods are not adequate to address the increasingly complex issues related to freight demand. This project includes research that has combined tour based truck models and logistics supply chain models for urban commercial vehicle movements and that has demonstrated a functional model framework that addresses the limitations of current freight demand forecasting models. The research was performed by Resource Systems Group Inc., in partnership with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The project introduced a model framework and focused on the estimation of each of the model components, described the approach to linking the models together in the model application, and presented initial results from applying the model in the Chicago region. The models were estimated for demonstration purposes from several sources, since there were no datasets that could support all aspects of the new framework. To make the demonstration more practical, two commodities were chosen to model from the data available (food products and manufactured products). The models developed for the project were applied using software developed in R, an open source platform. A data collection program to support the estimation, calibration, and forecasting of the framework for future use was recommended. Further efforts to improve this framework with new data, model improvements, and forecasts would be welcome.

Keywords:

• Freight forecasting
• Supply chain models
• Tour based freight models
• Urban commercial goods movement

The authors wish to thank Federal Highway Administration (Supin Yoder and Brian Gardner) for supporting the research throughout the project and for CMAP (Kermit Wies and Craig Heither) for supporting the application and demonstration project by providing data and feedback on all aspects of the work. Kouros Mohammadian, Kazuya Kawamura, and Jane Lin provided invaluable technical assistance in bringing prior research into the framework. John Bowman conducted research and developed the data collection program. The supply chain model elements of the framework build on work done by Cambridge Systematics, Inc., for CMAP to develop the Mesoscale Model. We want to acknowledge this foundational work, and particularly the assistance provided by Daniel Beagan and Monique Urban from Cambridge Systematics, Inc., during the course of the research. We also want to acknowledge those who provided data for our use on the project – Matt Roorda (University of Toronto), Vladimir Livshits (Maricopa Association of Governments), and Jane Lin and Kouros Mohammadian (University of Illinois Chicago). Kazuya Kawamura (University of Illinois Chicago) deserves a special commendation for translating aspects of the Tokyo survey from Japanese.

The authors wish to thank Dr Rick Donnelly (Parsons-Brinckerhoff) and Professor Kenneth Boyer (Michigan State University) for freely sharing from their experience in the development of TRB Special Report 304, and exchanging ideas regarding prospects for and methods of obtaining the information needed to implement national scale models of the type considered in this project.

Notes

This paper is part of a special issue on the Fourth Innovations in Travel Modeling Conference