Micro-Simulation Approach to Rural Freight Movement Modeling

Freight demand modeling is important to support agricultural logistics and energy development especially in the Midwest, which is heavily dependent on the agricultural industry. Conventional four-step modeling has some inadequacies and transportation optimization approach is a temporary solution. Hence, this research proposes a multimodal agent based freight transportation model at a microscopic level to model the production, distribution, and consumption. In a large-scale transportation network, the agents interact over space and time in response to information being received from different sources. Thus, the multi-agent system is designed for the macro level in response to the changes in these environments. It gives the flexibility to each involved decision maker to change the parameters and variables of an individual agent and see the results of new configurations. The research focus is on the North Dakota grain industry and models mainly the transportation flow and vehicle miles traveled. The research provides some useful insights into freight demand modeling information and may be of interest to transportation planners, agricultural producers, and government policy makers and along with others involved in the upstream grain supply chain. Possible benefits to discuss are efficient agricultural logistics by supporting transportation infrastructure, proactive agricultural transportation operations management, a better understating of the effectiveness of truck weight restrictions, and etc.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT030 Standing Committee on Agricultural Transportation.
• Authors:
  • Taleqani, Ali Rahim
  • Lee, EunSu
  • Hough, Jill
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 6p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Demand; Freight traffic; Grain; Logistics; Microsimulation; Rural areas; Vehicle miles of travel
• Geographic Terms: North Dakota
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01661009
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-00085
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 23 2018 4:27PM