Abstract
The Chinese government has long been preoccupied with solving the problem of overloaded trucking in intercity freight systems (IFSs). The enforcement of prohibiting overloaded trucking, which enhances environmental and social performance of sustainability, has not progressed well, as it raises transport costs and lowers economic performance, and cannot improve the overall performance of sustainability. It is, thus, necessary to find a way to eliminate overloaded trucking without undermining the overall performance of sustainability. A modal shift is a potential way to achieve freight sustainability, by encouraging greater use of more efficient transport modes. This paper develops a system dynamics model to perform a long-term evaluation of alternative modal shift policies with trucks meeting the statutory limit, and then identified effective policies, whereby the increasing sustainability of IFSs could be achieved. The proposed model was applied to a specific case in China. The results show that the effective modal shift policy is to construct a Class I railway to shift freight away from highways. A discussion is then proposed, based on an analysis of different parameter setting scenarios regarding more general situations.
Highlights
Sustainability of transportation systems has become a growing area of interest in practice and research
The cumulative generalized cost (CGC) increases by 8.33 billion Yuan, most of which is contributed by the increase of the cumulative freight operating cost (7.22 billion Yuan), as the RWR counteracts the scale economies of transportation by significantly lowering the truck payload
Regarding the other constituent part of the CGC, namely the cumulative freight time cost, the results show that: (1) the cumulative freight time cost of truck traffic on the express highway increases by 1.25 billion Yuan because the RWR lowers the attractiveness of the regular highway and directs more truck traffic to the express highway, increasing the congestion and freight time of both a single truck and truck traffic; and (2) the cumulative freight time cost of truck traffic on the regular highway decreases slightly by 0.14 billion Yuan
Summary
Sustainability of transportation systems has become a growing area of interest in practice and research. There is no standard definition [1], Cormier and Gilbert [2] still recommend the definition proposed by the Centre for Sustainable Transportation (CST) in Canada, because this definition has a broad scope and recognizes specific transportation issues. According to this definition, the sustainability of a transportation system requires a transportation system to: (1) allow the basic access and development needs of individuals, companies, and society to be safely met; (2) operate fairly and efficiently, offering a choice of transport modes and supporting a competitive economy; and (3) limit emissions and waste within the planet’s ability to absorb them [2]. The meaning of freight sustainability in this study refers to “sustainability as a pathway”; namely, the achievement of better sustainability than that of the current practice, in terms of improvements to sustainable transport indicators
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