Modeling Relations Between Companies and CEP Service Providers in an Agent-Based Demand Model using Open-Source Data

Abstract

Growing e-commerce activities cause an equally rapid rise in demand for courier, express, and parcel (CEP) transportation, resulting in increased emissions and substantial strain on the road infrastructure, especially in urban areas. Therefore, transportation planners investigate the potential of alternative concepts for parcel and freight transport. Commonly freight demand models are used, however, current models for CEP-based transportation typically focus on private parcel demand. In this paper, we extend the integrated agent-based model logiTopp of last-mile parcel delivery and private travel demand by introducing company agents and, consequently, first-mile deliveries. We present a concept for modeling (the number of) relations between companies and carriers, as these relations highly influence the resulting travel demand in the survey area. Along with implementation techniques, we provide a greedy algorithm to estimate these carrier relations, which takes carrier market shares, customer parcel demand, and carrier capacity into account. All developed model components are solely based on open-source data.