Freight Distribution Tours in Congested Urban Areas: Characteristics and Implications for Carriers’ Operations and Data Collection Efforts

This research analyses several months of truck activity records in an urban area. Data corresponds to the daily activity of less than truckload (LTL) delivery tours in the city of Sydney. The analysis of the data provides insightful information about urban commercial vehicle tours and congestion levels. Route patterns were identified and their relationship to trip and tour length distribution was analyzed. Travel between different industrial suburbs explains the shape of multimodal trip length distributions. Variations in daily demand explain the normal-like shape of the tour trip distribution. Congestion costs and operational implications are discussed as well as truck driver perceptions regarding congestion and route choice. It is argued that large metropolitan areas should offer open internet access to congestion data and vehicle routing tools in order to reduce unnecessary buffers in route design and to reduce the amount of commercial vehicle kilometers traveled.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Figliozzi, Miguel Andres
  • Kingdon, Lynsey
  • Wilkitzki, Andrea
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 21p
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Commercial vehicle operations; Costs; Data collection; Demand; Freight traffic; Industries; Internet; Less than truckload traffic; Motor carriers; Route choice; Suburbs; Traffic congestion; Travel patterns; Trip distribution; Trip length; Truck drivers; Truck routes; Truck traffic; Trucking; Urban areas
• Uncontrolled Terms: Perceptions; Truck tours
• Geographic Terms: Sydney (Australia)
• Subject Areas: Finance; Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers; Society; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01045232
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-3069
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 8 2007 7:46PM