Urban freight modelling - a literature review

The total road freight task in Australia has increased by 77 percent over the last decade, and is forecast to continue to increase significantly in the future. Urban freight movements by road play a major impact on the economic wellbeing of urban and regional centres in Australia. At the same time, there are growing community concerns about the adverse environmental impacts of commercial vehicle traffic in terms of air pollution, noise and visual intrusion, as well as the road accident incidence of such vehicles. Freight movements on urban road networks account for some 50 to 60 percent of total road transportation tasks in urban areas. Some 40 percent of road freight movements, in terms of tonne-kilometres, takes place in urban areas. In a recent survey of 49 major users of road related research results in Australia, the Australian Road Research Board found that the three major issues identified in relation to heavy vehicle research were safety, cost recovery and freight movements on urban networks. Within the urban networks topic, respondents identified the following areas as benefiting most from research effort: effects on and of congestion, logistics of urban freight operations, environmental impacts and route choice. This report reviews some of the past efforts at modelling the movement of freight in urban areas. Whilst the four areas of modelling are reviewed (namely trip generation, trip distribution, modal-split and trip assignment) the report focuses on the modelling of route choice.