Urban Freight Systems Research Articles

Quantifying the overall spatial distribution characteristics of urban heavy truck trips: The case of China

Urban freight systems serve as an essential part of city livability. Heavy trucks are critical for urban freight system operation. Although understanding the overall spatial distribution characteristics of heavy truck trips is important for urban freight system planning and management, quantifying the spatial distribution characteristics of heavy truck trips remains scarce. In this study, we employ two indices, the flow hierarchy index and the urban centrality index, to quantify the overall spatial distribution characteristics of heavy truck trips from two perspectives: the heavy truck flow hierarchical organization and outflow spatial distribution centrality. We use these approaches to quantify the overall spatial distribution characteristics of heavy truck trips for typical Chinese cities and classify them into four patterns. We further analyze the characteristics and underlying mechanism of each pattern and then calculate the overall heavy truck trip efficiencies for cities in different patterns. Our research offers a framework for quantifying the overall spatial distribution characteristics of urban heavy truck trips and provides policymaking references for the planning and management of urban freight systems.

Seeking equity and justice in urban freight: where to look?

ABSTRACT Urban freight systems embed and reflect spatial inequities in cities and imbalanced power structures within transport decision-making. These concerns are principal domains of “transportation justice” (TJ) and “mobility justice” (MJ) scholarship that have emerged in the past decade. However, little research exists situating urban freight within these prevailing frameworks, which leaves urban freight research on socio-environmental equity and justice ill-defined, especially compared to passenger or personal mobility discussions. Through the lens that derives from TJ and MJ’s critical dialogue, this study synthesises urban freight literature’s engagement with equity and justice. Namely, the review evaluates: How do researchers identify equitable distributions of urban freight’s costs and benefits? At what scale do researchers evaluate urban freight inequities? And who does research consider entitled to urban freight equity and how are they involved in urban freight governance? The findings help inform researchers who seek to reimagine urban freight management strategies within broader equity and justice discourse.

Uncovering and modeling the hierarchical organization of urban heavy truck flows

Knowledge of the hierarchical organization of urban heavy truck flows is important for understanding the structure of urban freight system and underlying interactions dynamics, providing insights to assess and develop freight policies. The complexity and dynamic nature of urban freight system pose significant challenges in comprehensively capturing structured arrangement of heavy truck movements. In this paper, we uncover the hierarchical organization of urban heavy truck flows by using complex network theory. We use large-scale heavy truck GPS data and urban freight location point-of-interest (POI) data to construct urban heavy truck mobility networks, and detect their community structure. The empirical results suggest different sets of locations are closely linked to each other to form multiple clusters. By integrating the categories of locations, we reveal the cluster-specific industry concentration and industry-specific location roles, informing evidence-based policy formulation. To capture the interaction dynamics of locations, we develop a spatial network growth model that considers the spatial agglomeration of industrial clusters and interaction pattern of locations. The model provides a mathematical tool to simulate the formation process of real-world networks for logistics planning and management.

Empirical analysis and modeling of the allometric scaling of urban freight systems

Heavy trucks which undertake the majority of freight volume play an important role in urban freight systems. By analyzing heavy truck trip data, we find a superlinear scaling relationship for heavy truck trips and a sublinear scaling relationship for heavy truck numbers relative to urban population size. Although these allometric scaling relationships that widely appear in nature and social systems have been explained by many models, a simple model that can cover a wide range of scaling exponents in these systems is still lacking. Here, we develop a partially mixing city operation model by quantifying the mixability of the urban population to explain why the superlinear and sublinear scaling exponents are in the range of 1 and . This simple model not only helps us understand the mechanism of allometric scaling of urban freight systems, but also provides a new framework for other superlinear and sublinear scaling relationships in cities.

A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective on Barriers to a Fossil-Free Urban Freight System

The purpose of this study is to provide a system perspective on the barriers to the development of a fossil-free and thus more sustainable urban freight system and to provide insights regarding these barriers and how they impede progress. The system perspective complements earlier research, where barriers were identified in delimited parts of freight systems. Here, the urban freight system in a Swedish city is explored using an inductive and qualitative approach, according to which barriers are both detailed and categorized. This study is based on empirical data concerning the perceptions of multiple stakeholders in one system. The interrelationships between barrier categories and changes to the urban freight system are explored through management theory. This study provides a unique overview of the barriers to development in one system and insights concerning these barriers and how they impede development of the system. Ten categories of barriers are identified: technology, infrastructure, economy, knowledge, policy, goals, organization, cooperation, politics, and societal factors. The categories can be divided into four different types, which are related to each other and to the overall system in various ways, based on how they impede the development toward sustainability. Future research could advance this theoretical knowledge by continuing to study urban freight system development processes and by adding insights from other contexts, stakeholders, and theoretical areas.

Development of urban freight trip generation models concerning establishment classification process for a developing country

The objective of this study is to develop the Freight Trip Generation (FTG) models concerning establishment classification process for estimating freight trip activity. Establishment Based Freight Survey (EBFS) was performed to collect various supply chain variables involved in the urban freight system. Extensive data of 647 samples were collected from Tiruchirappalli city, India. Economic activity analysis shows that pure receiver and intermediate establishments do not follow the uniform freight trip activity among the industrial segments. Hence, a suitable methodology for the establishment classification process is developed using traditional and machine learning (ML) techniques to classify the establishment into an intermediate and pure receiver before estimating the freight trip activity. Supply chain variables like employment, FTA, industrial segment, mode of the commercial vehicle, type of delivery, number of suppliers, and gross floor area play a crucial role in the establishment classification process. Then, employment-based FTG models are developed with the classified data using linear and non-linear functional forms for each industrial segment. Finally, it is observed that FTG models result enhanced, when the establishment classification process is performed as an initial stage, with lower error and accurate estimation of urban freight trip activity.

Response to COVID-19 lockdowns from urban freight stakeholders: An analysis from three surveys in 2020 in France, and policy implications

The global COVID-19 pandemic has led to the implementation of health measures of varying degrees and scales. The lockdowns that took place in 2020, especially, have had a major impact on cities, transforming urban lifestyles, economic activities and mobility. Logistics became a priority activity. Faced with changed levels and types of consumption, freight and logistics operators in cities had to adapt, while logistics real estate developers had to face challenges related to building sites closed and regulatory and licensing processes delayed. Our main research in this paper is to characterize the way the urban freight and logistics system coped with the new situation. We focused on French cities, with Paris and the Paris metropolitan area as the main case. We implemented three surveys during and after the first lockdown in France (March–May 2020), with the views of identifying challenges while characterizing stakeholders’ response to the challenges. The three surveys took different and complementary forms, covering various categories of stakeholders: freight carriers (from small to large); third party logistics providers; on-demand delivery platforms; policy-makers; and logistics real-estate developers. We found out that operators adapted quickly and overall successfully, one major difference being between delivery operators and property developers. The first group experienced higher levels of financial and economic challenges; the second group experienced difficult relationships with administrations and regulations, while enjoying a rather high level of activity. The ability of local governments to deal with urban logistics challenges during the lockdowns was diverse and took several unexpected forms.

The adoption of alternative delivery locations in New York City: Who and how far?

Online shopping has shown a remarkable growth trend for the past three decades. The increasing demand for deliveries resulting from online shopping generates lots of negative externalities contributing to traffic congestion, parking violations, and air pollution. To mitigate these negative externalities, the importance of an alternative delivery location (ADL) is growing in transportation area as delivery and transportation systems are intertwined. The ADL includes a delivery locker (e.g., Amazon Hub Locker), a brick-and-mortar store who partners with parcel delivery companies (e.g., UPS Access Points), and a postal store. Despite the growing size and importance of the ADL, little is known about receivers’ behavior on the ADL from the transportation perspective. To better understand the ADL, this research developed joint models of parcel demand and the ADL to investigate factors affecting (a) the adoption of the ADL and (b) the distance people are willing to travel using the NYC DOT Citywide Mobility Survey in 2018. The results show that delivery frequency received by respondents negatively affects the adoption but does not affect the tolerable distance. The impacts of socio-demographic attributes on the behavior are also discussed. A prediction to the entire population in Manhattan was made and a corresponding strategy to determine the optimal ADL location is discussed. This research is the first attempt comprehensively investigating behaviors on the ADL from the transportation planning perspective. This research will contribute to the literature in urban freight systems by improving understanding of the ADL in dense urban areas.

Decarbonisation of Urban Freight Transport Systems through Alternative Fuels

Alternative fuels are a highly important resource for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. This study includes a critical review that examines the currently available alternative fuel options including potential future developments to predict the most likely and effective options for decarbonising urban freight systems. Specifically, the introduction of this study (section 1) explains the importance of decarbonising road freight and reducing our dependence on non-renewable oil-based fuels. Section 2 involves a general review of different alternative fuel options. The production processes of different alternative fuel types are covered, as well as general information including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how the fuels are used. Section 3 covers the specific benefits and challenges associated with each alternative fuel type, how they can be of use to urban freight transport systems and the potential issues that could arise when using them. Section 4 summarizes the key information about each alternative fuel type and uses it to make predictions for the possibility of future implementation in the short term, medium term, and long term.

ПАРАДИГМА ЕФЕКТИВНОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ МІСЬКИМИ ТРАНСПОРТНО-ЛОГІСТИЧНИМИ СИСТЕМАМИ

The article is devoted to the problems of effective management of urban transport and logistics systems. The aim of the article is to highlight the paradigm of effective management of urban transport and logistics systems. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were solved: to form the structure of the concept of transport and logistics system; to find out the essence of the city transport and logistics system; to systematize the risks that affect the efficiency of urban transport and logistics systems, and to explore the concept of managing these risks; provide modeling as a useful tool for designing and evaluating urban transport and logistics systems. The set goal has been achieved, and the tasks to achieve it have been completed. The goals of activities that can be achieved with the use of the city transport and logistics system were identified, in the context of which the factors influencing the city transport and logistics system are listed: mobility; environmental friendliness; viability; stability. The links between human security and the city's transport and logistics system have been identified. It was found that ICT and ITS allow to develop efficient and environmentally friendly urban delivery systems. An example of this is probabilistic or dynamic vehicle routing and scheduling with ITS-based time windows. The need for modeling for the public and private sectors is proved. It is shown that in the public sector, the risks associated with natural and man-made hazards in urban freight transport systems directly affect the public well-being and health of the population in emergencies. It has been proven that the public sector is interested in finding a reduction in damage to urban logistics facilities and rapid recovery from natural disasters in terms of delivery of goods needed to maintain a high quality of life in urban areas. The need to include uncertainty in the urban logistics model is described to ensure their good performance in the future. Various methods have been shown to account for uncertainties in supply chain modeling, such as scenario and contingency planning, decision trees, and stochastic programming. Simulation has been shown to be a useful tool for the design and evaluation of urban freight and logistics systems. It has been confirmed that urban transport systems need to be more resilient to limit the effects of natural disasters.

Urban freight logistics: What do citizens perceive?

Urban freight logistics involve the movement and operations generated by freight activity in urban areas. As such, freight logistics impact multiple stakeholders. However, these stakeholders are mostly not taken into consideration when planners and decision makers look into potential solutions to the issues generated by freight operations. In this paper, results are shown from a survey conducted and analyzed unveiling citizens’ perceptions with respect to the urban freight system in a mid-size urban area. Four hypotheses are proposed and tested using a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. Results show that, unlike what is generally believed, citizens are aware of the freight system and its impact on their daily activities. Moreover, citizens who perceive the infrastructure to be in poor condition also have a greater awareness of the negative externalities generated by freight operations. In addition, having a higher perception of freight’s negative externalities decreases citizens’ perception of the overall performance of freight logistics in the city. Furthermore, the results unveiled heterogeneity in citizens’ perceptions based on their socio-economic characteristics and based on their location. The results shed light on the perceptions citizens have towards urban freight logistics, and confirms the importance that decision makers should place on engaging the public early in the planning process. By raising awareness among planners in a proactive manner, these findings could be used to enhance the level of community engagement in freight planning, and by extension the level of citizen support for programs and initiatives aimed at addressing urban freight issues.

Analyzing Urban Freight System, Supply Chain Characteristics and Temporal Travel Pattern in Indian context

State of the art in understanding the urban freight system is quite challenging in developing countries, and India is one of them. Consequently, there is a paucity of knowledge in comprehending the urban freight system's supply chain characteristics and its impact on operation, infrastructure, and the environment. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the supply chain characteristics, estimate the freight trips and freight temporal travel patterns for different industrial sectors in the various establishments at a microscopic level. Using an establishment-based freight survey (EBFS) form, a total of 647 establishment data was collected from Tiruchirappalli, India. This study initially investigated the dynamic and robustness of the supply chain characteristics such as establishment, commodity, vehicular movements, and delivery patterns involved in the urban freight system at the microscopic level. Then, correlation tests were performed to understand the relationship between supply chain characteristics and freight trips at different confidence intervals. Business size variables (employment and gross floor area) were used to estimate the freight trip movement and generate a freight trip rate table for intermediate and pure receiver establishment. Freight trips rates for different industrial sectors were estimated using multiple classification analysis method and compared to various goodness of fit measures. Eventually, the urban freight temporal travel pattern was assessed and visualized by hourly travel distribution of the freight movements during regular working days in the various industrial sector for the Indian context.

Using data and technology to integrate mobility modes in low-income cities

ABSTRACT The utilisation of data and technology in transportation has given rise to new forms of flexible, on-demand mobility and urban freight services. Such advances have also enabled the integration of multiple transportation modes and facilitated more predictable, environmentally-friendly, high-volume trips. While many of these technologies are now commonplace in higher income cities, they are less prevalent in lower income cities. This review identifies a) recent advances in technology and data that can facilitate multimodal urban travel, and b) the existing and potential application of these advances in low- and lower middle-income (LIC and LMIC) cities, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. This review examines peer-reviewed and grey literature and uses a multi-method approach with expert interviews. The review identifies open transportation data and data standards, global positioning systems, cashless fare payment, and blockchain as having high potential to facilitate integrated mobility in lower income contexts, and considers potential barriers to adopting and risks of utilising these technologies in LICs and LMICs. The review finds that, enabled by technology and data advances, LICs and LMICs could leapfrog the high car use and inefficient urban freight systems typical of higher income cities to more integrated, efficient, multimodal transport systems.

Integrating autonomous delivery service into a passenger transportation system

The increasing demand for goods, especially in urban areas, together with the technological advances are creating both opportunities and challenges for planning urban freight systems. One of these promising opportunities is to use the underused assets in people-based systems to transport goods. In this paper, we consider an integrated system in which a set of freight requests needs to be delivered using a fleet of grounded, and autonomous, pickup and delivery (PD) robots where a public transportation service (referred to as scheduled line (SL)) can be used as part of PD robot's journey. Passengers and PD robots (carrying freight) share the available capacity on SLs where passengers are prioritised, and their transport demand is stochastic. Thus the number of available places for PD robots is only revealed upon shuttle arrival to the corresponding SL station. We first formulate this problem as a Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows and Scheduled Lines (PDPTW-SL). We then introduce a sample average approximation (SAA) method along with an Adaptive Large Neighbourhood Search (ALNS) algorithm for solving the stochastic optimization problem. Finally, we present an extensive computational study, analyse its results and give some directions for future research.

Evaluating the environmental impacts of online shopping: A behavioral and transportation approach

Various fields and commercial sectors have witnessed a transformation with the advent of the internet. In the last decade, the retail sector in particular has witnessed the massive growth of e-commerce. This has also significantly altered our shopping experiences, influencing a range of decisions, from where, how, and how much to shop. With the consistent growth of e-commerce transactions, more trucks than ever before are entering cities today, bringing with them the negative externalities of increased congestion and pollution. This study first unravels underlying shopping behaviors–both in-store and online–using the 2016 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data. The authors also develop an econometric behavioral model to understand the factors that affect shopping decisions. At a macro level, the disaggregate individual shopping behaviors are studied by implementing the model to synthetic populations to estimate potential vehicle miles traveled and environmental emissions in two metropolitan areas, Dallas and San Francisco (SF). Finally, the study estimates the impacts of rush deliveries, basket size, and consolidation levels by developing a breakeven analysis between in-store and online shopping. These results confirm the importance of managing the urban freight system, including delivery services and operations, to foster a more sustainable urban environment.

Shaping Urban Freight Systems via a Participatory Approach to Inform Policy-Making

In the upcoming era of new technologies, a transport system is expected to be ‘more sustainable,’ ‘safer,’ and ‘more efficient.’ However, to what extent is this true? Based on the results of a series of stakeholder engagement workshops, the paper explores the vision of different stakeholders about urban freight of the future. A Participatory Approach was used to allow stakeholders to identify the problem and co-design a set of solutions. Potential impacts of innovative urban deliveries on economy, environment, and society were analysed. Methodology and results were then compared with those of a city stakeholder engagement workshop delivered in Newcastle upon-Tyne in 2014. Stakeholders considered that an “engaging” and “easy to use” process was needed to facilitate the process and it encouraged participants to find solutions for a ‘common good.’ The participatory approach proposed in this process would support transport planners and policy-makers to design and implement a consistent policy framework for future sustainable urban freight systems.

Joint Distribution Center Location Problem for Restaurant Industry Based on Improved K-Means Algorithm With Penalty

The location of joint distribution center (JDC) is of great importance in urban freight system. This work aims to minimize the total cost, including the fixed cost, the transportation cost, and the penalty cost for the missed deliveries, considering the joint distribution willingness (JDW) of restaurant and the coverage radius of JDC. The integer programming model is formulated to select the optimal location of JDC and opens no more than k-JDCs. To solve the problem, an improved K-means (I-K-means) algorithm combining local search with penalty is proposed. The delivery problems obtained by freight survey from 114 restaurants in Beijing, China are taken as a case study. The formulation in this paper can reduce the cost of deliveries in restaurant industry, decrease the number of freight vehicles on road, and promote the joint distribution mode in urban freight system.

Automation, electrification, and shared mobility in urban freight: opportunities and challenges

Automation, electrification, and shared mobility are 3 the Revolutions (3Rs) in the passenger transport sector that have resulted in efficiency improvements, cost reductions, and low carbon emissions. Although there is interest about their implementation in freight transportation, the development of multiple 3Rs initiatives in freight represent a challenge for academics and practitioners, especially to anticipate potential obstacles in last mile operations. Consequently, this paper discusses the challenges and opportunities for the introduction of the 3Rs in the last mile. Specifically, the paper provides an overview of different technologies, at different levels of market readiness, and explores their benefits and/or unintended consequences. The main contribution of this exploratory research is informing the current state of the 3Rs and providing insights to develop policies, plans or initiatives that promote these revolutions in the urban freight system.

Modelling city logistics using recent innovative technologies

Recently a range of new information based technologies have been developed that create opportunities to implement more integrated and dynamic City Logistics solutions. Sensor networks and demand models can assist in advancing understanding and the prediction the negative impacts of freight on human health that can be used in evaluation. Advances in autonomous and electric freight vehicles have good potential for improving the efficiency and sustainability of urban freight systems. This paper presents an overview of how models can be used to promote the adoption of advanced technologies for enhancing City Logistics.

Measuring environmental performance of urban freight transport systems: A case study

Environmental sustainability is a requirement for modern urban freight transport systems. On a global scale, most resources are currently consumed in cities, contributing to the economic importance of urban freight transport as well as its poor environmental performance. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how to correctly quantify the environmental efficiency of urban freight systems. In this context, this paper proposes a new methodology for evaluating the environmental performance of urban freight transport systems by applying the Overall Greenness Performance (OGP) tool. OGP is a lean-based hierarchy of metrics that uses the value-added concept to relate a company’s productivity with its environmental performance. The proposed methodology uses a mixed-integer linear programming model to assess the environmental impact of the activities and/or requirements in an urban freight transportation system. This paper examines how company context, the supply chain and value stream activity types, namely value adding, necessary but non-value adding and non-value adding, affect a system’s performance, operational costs and environmental impact. Real data from the city of Bogotá, Colombia, were used to validate this approach. A sensitivity analysis was performed with different companies, demands and costs in order to evaluate the trade-offs between economic performance and environmental impact.