Data collection strategies for benchmarking urban goods movement across Canada

Abstract

<p>Despite increasing recognition of the importance of goods movement in urban areas, and a growing number of related data collection efforts, Canada's systems for moving goods in urban areas are still poorly understood. The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate options for a benchmarking system for urban goods movement.</p><p>This paper characterizes the dimensions of goods movement that occur in urban areas, identifies performance indicators that reflect policy goals and objectives, summarizes the data requirements of state of practice urban goods movement modeling approaches, and assesses available data collection methods in Canada. The paper then outlines five alternative frameworks, each of which identifies a suite of data collection methods that, in combination, has potential to fulfill data needs for measuring performance indicators and supporting modeling for predicting those indicators. The paper concludes that a national shipper-based survey and periodic purchase of vehicle tracking data from 3rd party providers provides, on balance, a preferable combination of complementary strengths for nation-wide performance benchmarking of urban goods movement.</p>