National and International Freight Transport Models: An Overview and Ideas for Future Development

Abstract

This paper contains a review of the literature on freight transport models, focussing on the types of models that have been developed since the nineties for forecasting, policy simulation and project evaluation at the national and international level. Models for production, attraction, distribution, modal split and assignment are discussed in the paper. Furthermore, the paper also includes a number of ideas for future development, especially for the regional and urban components within national freight transport models.

The issues in modelling freight transport at the national level

“…the Dutch national freight transport model Basgoed or the strategic freight model for Flanders) and also some whose input is more disaggregate (see e.g. de Jong et al, 2012, de Jong et al, 2004. The accuracy and possible uses of models but also their development costs vary depending on the aggregation level of the data.…”

TAPAS: A multi-agent-based model for simulation of transport chains

“…Models based on the four-step approach can look rather different, and different steps are typically represented by different types of sub-models, such as system dynamics models (e.g., ASTRA (Shade et al, 1999)), and economic models such as I/O models (e.g., Samgods (Swahn, 2001)) and gravity models (e.g., NEAC (Chen and Tardieu, 2000)). An overview of models based on the four-step approach is provided in (de Jong et al, 2004). Further, sometimes more than one step is represented within the same sub-model, such as in Samgods (Swahn, 2001), in which modal choice and assignment is integrated.…”

“…For instance, Terzi and Cavalieri (2004) contributed with a review focusing on parallel and distributed supply chain simulation. In the transport modeling domain, several reviews exist (e.g., Chow et al, 2010;de Jong et al, 2004;Tavasszy, 2006), and Friedrich and Liedtke (2009) provided a review of current transport modeling literature focusing on two agent-based models.…”

“…Moreover, such models are commonly based on the aggregate and sequential four-step approach. Models based on this approach include one or several sub-models that can be described using four steps; production & attraction (trip generation), trip distribution, modal choice, and aggregation (de Jong et al, 2004). Models based on the four-step approach can look rather different, and different steps are typically represented by different types of sub-models, such as system dynamics models (e.g., ASTRA (Shade et al, 1999)), and economic models such as I/O models (e.g., Samgods (Swahn, 2001)) and gravity models (e.g., NEAC (Chen and Tardieu, 2000)).…”

The Colombian Strategic Freight Transport Model Based on Product Analysis

“…These are estimated using multiple techniques such as [3,[18][19][20]: Trend and time series models; freight generation and freight trip generation models based on multiple classification analysis and multiple linear regression [2]; fuzzy regression algorithms [21]; dynamic system models; zonal travel rates; and inputoutput models.…”