Study on the Structure of Digitized Transport Networks and Evaluation of Some Logistics Policies

Abstract

This paper presents a method to construct an integrated transport network model based on the attributes and structures of the modes and path choice behavior of users. First, a conception of integrated transport networks is given and the meanings of dummy links and their construction methods are discussed. Three kinds of dummy links are created. Then three kinds of network models are constructed for the Chinese Northeast region, and their performance is evaluated. Finally, we evaluate some logistics techniques and policies with the integrated transport network. INTRODUCTION An integrated transport network is a network consisting of links and nodes of several kinds of transport modes (Jin et al, 2006). When organizing multi-mode transport, the cost, time and reliability of the combination of different modes must be considered; therefore, the shortest path between the origin and destination, the mode combination of the shortest path and the transfer cost/time from one mode to another should be considered. Thus integrated networks are necessary to analyze multi-mode transport schemes. Recently, many studies have focused on integrated transport, among them a quantitative analysis mainly focused on terminal location (Guo et al, 2001), and an analysis of multi-mode transport and path choice (Beuthe et al, 2001, Sun and Yang, 2005, Zhang and Guo, 2002). In the field of integrated transport networks, many researchers have built simple network models and have developed the shortest path algorithms (Lozano and Storchi, 2001, Wei et al, 2006, Kozan, 2001). There is scant literature discussing the transfer process in the integrated network. Based on the analysis of the attributes and structures of each mode, and path choice behaviors of users, this paper presents a method for constructing integrated transport networks. Three kinds of construction methods are presented based on different kinds of links, and a set of logistics techniques and policies are listed and evaluated based on the network. INTEGRATED TRANSPORT NETWORK MODEL The integrated transport network model means a mathematical configuration recorded in the computer, which can represent the topological structure of the combination of multi-mode transport networks in the real world (Southworth and ICCTP 2009: Critical Issues in Transportation Systems Planning, Development, and Management ©2009 ASCE 2858