Truck Movements Research Articles

A Hybrid Agent-Based Simulation and Optimization Approach for Statewide Truck Parking Capacity Expansion

Abstract Truck parking shortages are a critical concern for both the trucking industry and truck drivers in the USA. To tackle growing shortages, parking capacity expansions are needed. This paper presents a hybrid agent-based simulation and optimization approach to model truck movements and driver behaviors to determine feasible locations for truck parking facility capacity expansions across a state. The simulation model considers the driving limit and rest requirements of hours-of-service regulations set forth by the federal regulations. By leveraging observed historical truck GPS data, agent profiles are created, capturing truck trip origins, necessary stops, trip destinations, and parking behaviors. The simulation model estimates parking facility utilization over time by identifying where, when, and how long truck drivers rest. The estimated parking usage data is then fed into a maximal coverage capacitated multiple facility location optimization with multiple service model to deduce capacity expansion locations given budgetary restrictions. Ultimately the model recommends where and how many parking spaces to add to accomplish a certain level of parking overcrowding. The simulation and optimization approaches are finally integrated into a map-based, user adaptable decision support tool.

Influence of undefined modes of movement on instantaneous redistribution of normal reactions of quarry dump truck tires

Reducing the costs of rock transportation in mining is one of the most important tasks. One of the reserves for solving this issue is a more complete use of the service life of quarry dump trucks tires, since their operation takes place in heavy mining and climatic conditions and this significantly reduces the life of tires. The life of tires depends on many factors: speed of movement, compliance with the recommended air pressure in the tire, ambient air temperature, but the main thing is the change in the normal load on the wheel, which depends on the redistribution of the quarry dump truck weight in case of non-linear movement and on the longitudinal profile of the quarry road. In real conditions, the quarry dump truck moves unevenly due to the complexity of the road - either braking or acceleration occur. This article allows you to evaluate the impact of non-linear modes of quarry dump truck movement on the instant redistribution of normal tire reactions and take into account peak loads on wheels during acceleration and braking in the regular cycle. This will allow you to control the load on the tires directly by cargo amount in the quarry dump truck and thereby increase the life of the tires and their reliability, as well as reduce the cost of transporting the rock mass in real operating conditions.

A Capacity Planning through Discrete Event Simulation

The capacity planning serves an important role in strategic decisions involving production facilities. While there are many publications made on capacity planning, most of the models created tend to restrict their applications in real-world due to some initial assumptions being made and/or the run-time execution of the models that may be prohibitive. The objective of this paper is to explore the model construction for in-plant truck movement in a cement company that is based on building a discrete-event simulation one so that the planning may be sufficiently robust while the amount of time for constructing the model and the run-time still serve practical purposes. The model then is used to examine the effects of shifting bottlenecking and thus, allows users to identify critical resources for the production process. The results show that such a model provides the directions and aids for the management to make the strategic decisions.

Freight transport in the context of industrial ecology and sustainability: evaluation of uni- and multi-modality scenarios via life cycle assessment

This study aims at comparing, from an environmental point of view, four different scenarios of freight transport at the Italian level, on an equal base of route between supplier and customer. The first scenario included freight movements by truck and mainly ship, the second included track and mainly train, the third was the three-modal based scenario, whilst the fourth scenario was the only uni-modal, based only upon truck movement. The study was conducted to find the environmentally sustainable solution, or at least a sustainable trade-off, as well as the most environmentally burdening issues, associated with the geographic dimension of transport in Italy, towards sustainability. Using uni‐ and multi-modal freight movements by truck, rail and ship, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was developed to estimate the related environmental burdens both at the midpoint and at the endpoint levels from the consumption of primary energy and natural resources along with the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and of other pollutants. Primary data were compiled as part of the inventory analysis and consisted in the transport flows associated with the system investigated: those were calculated from the distance travelled and the goods load transported. Primary data were then combined with secondary data that were modelled with the transport life cycle modules contained in Ecoinvent: from those modules, the fuel consumption amounts associated transport flows were extrapolated, and used for the assessment. Results showed that the environmental impact of the multi-modal scenarios is lower compared with the uni-modal scenario. The best performing option was found to be the third scenario providing use of all the three freight means, namely ship, train and truck. However, this scenario is not being practiced for several reasons, mainly due to control and monitoring difficulties of each step and higher operational costs. The first and second scenarios showed a quite comparable environmental behaviour and so are to be considered as viable options. Apart from highlighting the most environmentally viable transport options, the study contributed to finding the indicators of environmental impact and damage that best describe the system investigated and are recommended by this author team to be accounted for in future assessments in the transport sector. Finally, although site-specific, the results of this study may be useful to logistics companies, policy and decision makers of other regions and countries towards identifying and promoting environmentally optimal freight transport solutions, contributing to sustainability of the transport sector.

Models of zoning of urban territory for rational delivery in the microconsolidation system

Urban logistics (or city logistics) is developing rapidly due to the strong growth of e-commerce. Accordingly, the last-mile urban logistics faces a significant number of orders that need to be fulfilled in a dense urban development, environmental constraints and permanent congestion. One of the possible systems of rational city delivery is the use of a network of consolidation centers at the micro level. Such a network provides for a two-tier system of urban delivery - 1) from the central warehouse or warehouses to the network of microconsolidation centers; 2) from microconsolidation centers to end consumers. This scheme is especially relevant in the presence of restrictions on the movement of trucks or heavy vehicles in certain areas of the city, as well as in significant congestion and the problem of parking trucks when unloading at the location of the client. Methods (research methodology). To create a rational delivery network through a microconsolidation system, the primary task is to determine the delivery zones (or geographical clusters) - their number, size, location. To solve this problem, optimization models are proposed based on several minimization criteria - delivery distance, time, cost and integrated distance-time criterion. Results. The result is the optimization models creation, based on those it is possible to divide urban consumers into several delivery zones. Delivery routes are planned within each zone of the respective centroid and minimize the cost of last-mile logistics. Delivery of goods to the centroids can be carried out by light or medium trucks, and within the zones should be dominated by delivery of environmentally friendly modes of transport (motorcycle or moped, bicycle, car, on foot delivery with the possibility of public transport usage). Conclusion. Thus, the article provides a mathematical apparatus for obtaining territorial zoning of existing customers of the city in order to minimize the cost (distance, time or their combination) for delivery within each zone. Perspectives. A perspective study may be an analysis of the costs of operating a network of urban consolidation centers and the delivery of goods from the central warehouse or warehouses to this network. Accordingly, the task of minimizing the total costs of the city freight delivery system should be solved, taking into account economic, environmental and social aspects.

Impact of truck contamination and information sharing on foot-and-mouth disease spreading in beef cattle production systems.

As cattle movement data in the United States are scarce due to the absence of mandatory traceability programs, previous epidemic models for U.S. cattle production systems heavily rely on contact rates estimated based on expert opinions and survey data. These models are often based on static networks and ignore the sequence of movement, possibly overestimating the epidemic sizes. In this research, we adapt and employ an agent-based model that simulates beef cattle production and transportation in southwest Kansas to analyze the between-premises transmission of a highly contagious disease, foot-and-mouth disease. First, we assess the impact of truck contamination on the disease transmission with the truck agent following an independent clean-infected-clean cycle. Second, we add an information-sharing functionality such that producers/packers can trace back and forward their trade records to inform their trade partners during outbreaks. Scenario analysis results show that including indirect contact routes between premises via truck movements can significantly increase the amplitude of disease spread, compared with equivalent scenarios that only consider animal movement. Mitigation strategies informed by information sharing can effectively mitigate epidemics, highlighting the benefit of promoting information sharing in the cattle industry. In addition, we identify salient characteristics that must be considered when designing an information-sharing strategy, including the number of days to trace back and forward in the trade records and the role of different cattle supply chain stakeholders. Sensitivity analysis results show that epidemic sizes are sensitive to variations in parameters of the contamination period for a truck or a loading/unloading area of premises, and indirect contact transmission probability and future studies can focus on a more accurate estimation of these parameters.

Towards Deriving Freight Traffic Measures from Truck Movement Data for State Road Planning: A Proposed System Framework

To make the right decisions on investments, operations, and policies in the public road sector, decision makers need knowledge about traffic measures of trucks, such as average travel time and the frequency of trips among geographical zones. Private logistics companies daily collect a large amount of freight global positioning system (GPS) and shipment data. Processing such data can provide public decision makers with detailed freight traffic measures, which are necessary for making different planning decisions. The present paper proposes a system framework to be used in the research project “A new system for sharing data between logistics companies and public infrastructure authorities: improving infrastructure while maintaining competitive advantage”. Previous studies ignored the fact that the primary step for delivering valuable and usable data processing systems is to consider the final user’s needs when developing the system framework. Unlike existing studies, this paper develops the system framework through applying a user-centred design approach combining three main steps. The first step is to identify the specific traffic measures that satisfy the public decision makers’ planning needs. The second step aims to identify the different types of freight data required as inputs to the data processing system, while the third step illustrates the procedures needed to process the shared freight data. To do so, the current work employs methods of literature review and users’ need identification in applying a user-centralized approach. In addition, we develop a systematic assessment of the coverage and sufficiency of the currently acquired data. Finally, we illustrate the detailed functionality of the data processing system and provide an application case to illustrate its procedures.

Container drayage modelling with graph theory-based road connectivity assessment for sustainable freight transportation in new development area

Densely populated cities, suffered from land scarcity, are often encountered the need of exploring new development areas. This initiative in developed cities usually includes reconsolidating container depots and proposing multi-storey cargo centre as part of urban development roadmap. Changes on road network and connectivity between ports and container depots affect the efficiency of container drayage operations. A novel container drayage optimization model incorporating the road network and connectivity metrics is developed to minimise the total traveling distance, truck fuel cost, container rental cost and container movements among multiple consignees and shippers. The model is adopted in assessing the container logistics low between the ports and the Hung Shui Kiu New Development Area (HSKNDA) in Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. In assessing the impact of HSKNDA towards container drayage operations in the environment of congested urban area, the road logistics connectivity is evaluated with graph theory-based network metrics using ArcGIS. Road network files are analysed using ArcMap and the road connectivity are evaluated on its completeness, circuitry and complexity using road connectivity metrics and ArcMap. The road connectivity of the circumstances before and after HSKNDA are evaluated and the results revealed that the alpha, beta and gamma indexes changed slightly but the node number, link number and link length are decreased, benefiting container truck movements. The results have been adopted in optimising the container drayage problem in HSKNDA, the operating cost has been reduced in four simulated scenarios when compared to the results obtained by the traditional approach. The proposed approach integrates the GIS and optimisation modelling to improve the effectiveness and reduce operating cost in container drayage process, contributing to the research with the development of the integrated novel container drayage model as a smart urban logistics for sustainable freight transportation and the evaluation of the road connectivity on the new development area. It provides optimal solutions for ship liners and logistics firms in restructuring the physical logistics network, enhancing liner operations efficiency, mitigating carbon emission, and enabling a higher quality of living in the city.

Effect of Pavement Roughness and Transverse Slope on the Magnitude of Wheel Loads

Pavement distresses are assumed to occur uniformly along the left wheel path and right wheel path of the vehicles within a lane. However, there can be a significant difference in the magnitude of a particular distress between each of wheel paths due to transverse slope. Transverse slope significantly affects the magnitude of wheel load that is being transmitted to the top of pavement surface in each of the wheel paths. The magnitude of wheel load would be higher on the outer wheel path with reference to the median for a dual carriageway resulting in higher distresses. In a similar manner, rough pavement deteriorates at a much faster rate compared to smooth pavement as the magnitude of dynamic loads increases with increase in pavement surface roughness. Such effects are not taken into account in stress analysis and subsequent distress quantification. The focus of the current study is to quantify the magnitude of excess wheel loads due to the combined effects of pavement roughness and transverse slope. A fully loaded two-axle truck movement using TruckMaker software was simulated on a pavement surface by varying the pavement roughness and the transverse slope. Taking into account the initial roughness over a newly constructed pavement, the magnitude of axle load increased by 9% compared to the standard axle load. Further, the increase in magnitude of wheel load acting on the outer wheel path varied between 3.32 and 4.85% compared to the inner wheel path for a given pavement roughness profile by considering the standard range of transverse slopes.

Анализ несанкционированных свалок и пунктов сбора ТКО на территории поселка Октябрьский

The article is devoted to the pollution of municipal solid waste in small urban settlements on the example of the settlement of Oktyabrsky. During the work, unauthorized landfills were identified, their volume and composition. The locations of garbage cans and the movement of garbage trucks on the territory of the settlement are shown.

Examining the robustness of the Ontario truck road network

Robust road transportation networks are essential to facilitate truck movements between regions. Disruptions along certain road links could degrade the network’s robustness and curtail regional commerce. A network is considered robust if the network-wide travel cost does not change significantly before and after disruptions. The network robustness index (NRI) is a well-known measure for examining the effect of reduced capacity on one or more links. It has been mainly applied to urban networks and passenger trips. In this paper, the NRI is applied to assess the robustness of the Ontario-wide truck network. Truck flows between the 49 census divisions within Ontario and 25 external zones for the year 2012 are modeled on the network of 35,254 road links and 14,444 associated nodes. Several scenarios of incrementally reduced capacity on specific critical links are devised and simulated. The NRI is calculated for each scenario to identify the level of network robustness. The locational effects of the capacity reductions were explored with the help of maps to assess the change in traffic volumes of the simulated scenarios relative to the base case. As expected, traffic diffuses or shifts to neighboring links when capacities are reduced. These results can be useful in infrastructure planning and the design of alternative routes to minimize the negative impact on traffic flows when disruptions occur.

Weight-categorized truck flow estimation: A data-fusion approach and a Florida case study

Knowledge of spatial distributions of weight-categorized truck flows in a region is critical to the understanding of movements of empty or partially-loaded trucks and devising appropriate strategies to reduce empty or partially-loaded truck flows and improve truck utilization efficiency in the region. However, such disaggregated information cannot be directly obtained from existing data sources and models. In this paper, we propose a compact model for estimating weight-categorized truck origin–destination (OD) flows and link-level truck counts by fusing several freight datasets. The proposed model minimizes the squared errors between the estimated and observed truck OD flows and link volumes considering the flow conservation of trucks and commodity weights. To illustrate a real-world application of this model, a case study is conducted to estimate the spatial distribution of empty or partially-loaded truck flows into, within, and out of the State of Florida. With the case study results, high production- and attraction-zones of empty or partially-loaded truck trips are also identified. Such results can potentially inform freight planning and policy decisions to learn spatial patterns of empty or partially-loaded backhauling truck flows and devise countermeasures to reduce such flows and improve freight transportation efficiency. This is particularly relevant to a terminal state such as Florida that has large volumes of back-hauling truck flow.

Investigating the injury severity of single-vehicle truck crashes in a developing country

Trucking plays a vital role in economic development in every country, especially countries where it serves as the backbone of the economy. The fast growth of economy in Iran as a developing country has also been accompanied by an alarming situation in terms of fatalities in truck-involved crashes, among the drivers and passengers of the trucks as well as the other vehicles involved. Despite the sizable efforts to investigate the truck-involved crashes, very little is known about the safety of truck movements in developing countries, and about the single-truck crashes worldwide. Thus, this study aims to uncover significant factors associated with injury severities sustained by truck drivers in single-vehicle truck crashes in Iran. The explanatory factors tested in the models include the characteristics of drivers, vehicles, and roadways. A random threshold random parameters hierarchical ordered probit model is utilized to consider heterogeneity across observations. Several variables turned out to be significant in the model, including driver’s education, advanced braking system deployment, presence of curves on roadways, and high speed-limit. Using those results, we propose safety countermeasures in three categories of 1) educational, 2) technological, and 3) road engineering to mitigate the severity of single-vehicle truck crashes.

ВЫЯВЛЕНИЕ АНОМАЛИЙ НА ОСНОВЕ РАЗНОРОДНЫХ ДАННЫХ В РАСПРЕДЕЛЕННЫХ СИСТЕМАХ МОНИТОРИНГА

Various kinds of abnormal situations in the processes can be associated with both minor deviations and serious malfunctions or violations that can lead to irreparable consequences and financial losses. Timely identification of anomalies allows you to influence the course of the process and minimize the consequences of detected deviations from the normal course of the process. Anomaly detection is one of the tasks of data analysis. Modern monitoring systems contain a large number of different devices, the data from which can be used as initial data for intellectual analysis. Data preprocessing has a great influence on the quality of the analysis. The paper presents the options for using various methods of data analysis to solve the problems of detecting anomalies in the processes associated with the movements of moving objects. The stages of data preparation for different methods of analysis are described. Much attention is paid to the increasingly popular methods of intelligent analysis of processes. The features of the input data format for the methods of mining processes are considered, as well as the features of the assignment of attributes. The proposed data processing methods were tested on several datasets related to the movements of trucks in the distributed territory of the organization and the movements of employees in an office building

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF CARRIAGEWAY OPERATIONAL CONDITION INFLUENCE ON ACOUSTIC ROADSIDE AREA POLLUTION

Environmental noise management is an important part of the policy across the EU policy context, because transportation noise is a significant local environmental problem for most of the urban population. Increasing numbers of vehicles are associated with growing noise levels from road transport in urban areas and rising public health problems. Motor transport is considered to be a main source of noise pollution, so it is important to investigate the level of traffic noise and assess the relationship with traffic flows. The paper describes the main methods for determination of noise characteristics of traffic flows. The dependences for the prediction of the equivalent noise level and the results of field measurements of sound levels are presented. The results of field experiments and the calculated values of sound levels obtained by the analytical method are tested for homogeneity, using the Wilcoxon test. Experimental studies have established that the external sound level depends largely on the speed of vehicles, road conditions, and basic operating characteristics of highways. The analytical method associated with the use of deterministic and probabilistic models makes it possible to predict the traffic noise. But when dealing with the foregoing methods, there arise specific problems, many of which have not been resolved: there is no uniform terminology, nor is there any consensus on the use of noise characteristics of traffic flows in calculations at different stages of construction and reconstruction of highways of a certain traffic flow model under conditions of human settlements. Standardized measurement methods have been established and revised throughout the years by many renowned researchers. These methodologies have been revised in order to minimize problems that may occur and may not be foreseen by a less experienced researcher when adopting the measurement methods. Standardizing the measurement method is also useful for researchers because it becomes possible for researchers from around the world to compare their data. The joint effect of road conditions and the operational status of the roadway on the acoustic pollution of the roadside area is not fully taken into account. Therefore, applying the internationally recognized acoustical measurement standards is a good way to start any noise measurement experiment. The purpose of experimental research is to investigate the joint effect of road conditions and the operational status of the roadway on the acoustic pollution of the roadside area of settlements: identify the main characteristics of noise produced by traffic flows, consider the comparability of results of the field experiment and analytical computations. Slopes of 20…40‰ have little impact on the noise caused by the movement of passenger cars and trucks. In this case, the average acoustic emissions are identical to those used in the prediction of noise mode.

Estimation of Gas and Dust Emissions in Construction Sites of a Motorway Project

Minimizing the environmental impacts is a challenging task to achieve sustainability in road constructions. Although they are only temporary, the environmental burdens of building activities can have a great impact on the environment and communities, and must be properly assessed and mitigated. A comprehensive evaluation of the impacts requires the consideration of all construction activities, construction sites and the type and operation time of off-road machines and plants that will be used in each site. In this paper, a case study relating to the project of a motorway was carried out with the following objectives: (i) to estimate the dust and gases arising from the whole construction process and identify the most critical pollutants in terms of emitted quantity; (ii) to investigate the worksites, activities and processes with the greatest impact from an emissive standpoint, and (iii) to propose a rational approach for designing and putting in place effective mitigation measures. Carbon oxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and fine particulate matter (PM10) emissions have been estimated by applying different models, methodologies and databases, depending on the construction process under analysis, and an emissive balance sheet has been produced. Results showed that CO is the pollutant released in the greatest quantity, followed by NOx. The emission of PM10, mainly due to the movement of trucks on unpaved roads, is one order of magnitude less with respect to CO and NOx, but produces the most perceived and undesired effects of the construction process in the interested communities. Tunnels and bridge are the components of a road with the greatest impact in terms of air emissions.

Tour-Based Truck Demand Modeling with Entropy Maximization Using GPS Data

An approach is presented to determine the most likely tour distributions and model behavior for investigating drayage truck movements in a coastal region. This was done by implementing a revised form of entropy maximization based on truck tours to model and better understand drayage truck tour behavior at the San Pedro Bay Ports (SPBPs) complex in Southern California. The drayage trucks at the SPBPs have features that are distinct from other commercial trucks. The tour-based entropy maximization model proposed in this paper provides an opportunity to incorporate periodically updated GPS data collected in Southern California into a large-scale tour-based model. With the dataset, four models were estimated by cargo movement: (1) year-based, (2) low period, (3) medium period, and (4) high period models. The findings were consistent with the tour patterns varying by season and by cargo movement. Furthermore, the medium period, which represented relatively steady cargo movement, indicated a better MAPE (mean absolute percent error) than did other models. This proposed approach provides a significant advantage in that the most recent touring information obtained from advanced technologies could be directly applied to the tour-based model and subsequently used to assess various strategies.

Movement analysis of the semitrailer with the tank-container at hard braking -the case study

Transport of liquid, gaseous, powdered or granulated substances is an integral part of the industry in each country. This type of cargo is most often transported by companies that are a part of petrochemical, food or also other types of industry. Increased attention should be paid to transport of tank-vehicles and tank-containers from the point of view of road safety and environmental protection. The volume of such types of transport is growing every year. The extensive trend relates mainly to the developed world economies, which are experiencing economic growth, which includes also Slovakia according to the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. This article deals with evaluating the movement of semi-trailer trucks with a tank container during and immediately after hard braking. The movement of the semi-trailer truck with a tank container will be analysed and evaluated immediately after the vehicle is stopped. The movement of the vehicle will be analysed by video analysis. The focus is on analysing behaviour of the semi-trailer truck with a tank container during and immediately after braking. The article compares semi-trailer trucks with tank container with breakwater plates and tank containers without breakwater plates. An important feature of this comparison was processing of videos capturing these vehicles during hard braking in video analysis program.

Modeling and optimization of processes of transportation of heavy cargoes based on the automation of monitoring systems for the motor vehicles movement

This article presents the results of a study of the causes of destruction of the roadway. This allowed one to identify the relationship between the movement of heavy trucks and excessive wear of road structures, as well as to develop management and infrastructure solutions to ensure optimal planning of transportation of heavy goods with a view to reduce the impact on roads.

A study of container truck movement in Tanjung Priok port, Jakarta, Indonesia

Tanjung Priok is a port with a high level of import-export activity, and the flow of container movement is dominated by the Jakarta International Container Terminal and KOJA terminals. In addition to dwelling time problems, there are problems with the movement of the container trucks to and from both terminals, especially during peak hours of activity. The movement of trucks is dominated by single-move trucks (90–94% of the total movement of container trucks). An ineffective movement pattern can lead to a long queue that jams the existing road network around the port area. One solution to the problem is to develop an information system that can regulate the pattern of truck movements and adjust this to the level of service in the terminal and the ship docking schedule. A good distribution pattern will then optimize the movement of the trucks and reduce ineffective and inefficient movement.