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Unexpected disruptions in road freight transport caused by poor weather conditions, traffic accidents, etc., are quite frequent and have negative effects on the whole supply chain. Therefore, an intelligent disruption management system is necessary to revise the transport plan directly after disruptions have occurred. The literature presents several approaches for managing disruptions in road freight transport. However, most of them focus on urban freight distributions where disruptions are often handled by vehicle rerouting. The current work, in contrast, addresses disruption management in a line-haul freight transport network that connects urban distribution systems. We present a novel hybrid approach combining a simulation model, optimization algorithms, and a cost-effectiveness analysis. When a disruption occurs, the proposed approach can be used to analyze the impacts of the disruption, identify the affected trips, and revise their plan quickly in real time. Six re-planning strategies are proposed to handle the disruptions and are evaluated in terms of cost, reliability (expressed in time delays), and CO2 emissions. Cost-effectiveness analyses are conducted to rank the obtained solutions and identify the best strategy. Moreover, we suggest a decision support system architecture, based on the proposed approach, to enable disruption management in real-time settings. Real data is used to evaluate the proposed approach in different disruption scenarios. The results provide transport planners with useful insights into possible re-planning strategies and how to identify the best cost-effective strategy to minimize the disruptions’ effects and be more economically sustainable. This work also supports carriers in the transition towards intelligent disruption management.

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is a unique gauge for measuring the marine transportation of major dry bulk shipments. Increased sea freight is a precursor to the increase in economic activities. The volumes of sea trade and freight rates are influenced by import–export dynamics and changes in commodity prices. So, levels of commodity prices are monitored to gain insight into the anticipated demand for bulk shipments. In this study, the causality-in-quantiles (CiQ) model is used to model the causal relationship between BDI spot values and spot price of major dry bulk commodities like iron ore, aluminum, copper, agricultural products by considering 12 years of daily data. CiQ model is superior compared to other linear causality models as it helps in capturing the asymmetry and nonlinearity in causality based on different quantiles or market conditions i.e., bearish, normal, and bullish market conditions. Also, it captures the causality-in-mean as well as variance and helps in exploring the causal relationship in returns as well as volatility transmission between BDI and commodity prices. The finding of the paper throws interesting light on the asymmetric relationship between BDI and commodity prices- commodity prices are causing BDI in all market conditions, but the influence is stronger in normal periods than bearish and bullish periods. The causality from commodity to BDI follows a common pattern across most of the commodities. However, the effect of BDI on commodities considerably varies across the range of commodities and across market conditions. So, this model provides a plethora of information that will help commodity market participants to hedge the risk of variations in commodity price and freight rates effectively.

With the development of a digital economy, logistics is an integral and important part, so innovations in this area will help to increase entrepreneurial income and facilitate the storage and transportation of goods. The issues of implementing and financing logistics innovation are quite relevant and extensive. The development of the digital economy is forcing transport and logistics companies to digitise many of their business processes. All current logistics trends are related to the introduction and intensive development of digital technologies, which contribute to meeting the fast-growing needs of consumers. Today’s digitalisation is transforming the supply chain and companies with traditional logistics management approaches and technologies can no longer remain competitive. Purpose: examine and analyse the process of introducing innovative technologies in logistics and supply chain management. Methodology. The paper used economic-mathematical methods, system approach and generalization; analytical and statistical methods of analysis. Results. The article analyzes the application of innovative technologies in logistics and supply chain management; examines examples of the use of innovation and information and communication technologies by transport and logistics enterprises in their activities; proves that the introduction of innovation and information and communication technologies in logistics and freight transport is beneficial for improving workflow efficiency, data storage, reducing the duration of the logistics cycle, goods delivery management, reducing errors Practical implications: the obtained results are appropriate to be applied by economic entities involved in logistics and supply chain management activities.

Freight transport disruptions in recent years caused production shutdowns in the industry, supply shortages and high economic damage around the world. In practice, contingency strategies from transport operators are often weak and disruption management fails to handle the situation sufficiently. Despite availability of data collection, academic optimization approaches, and multiple initiatives for coordinated multimodal management in case of disruptions, there are multiple infrastructural, decisional and organizational issues, which limit their applicability. We study those factors by a literature analysis, and a survey in which we ask practitioners, authorities and academic experts to discuss specific aspect in structured and unstructured form. We summarize some parameters, which can be influenced by strategic, tactical, operational actions, and those others referring to systemic properties; or disruption characteristics, which can only be hedged against. Hereby, we offer a knowledge base to future projects aiming to optimize multimodal management at strategic tactical and operational scope, to counter disruptions in freight transport networks., IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2, ISSN:2687-7813

Critical infrastructure networks, such as transport and power networks, are essential for the functioning of a society and economy. The rising transport demand increases the congestion in railway networks and thus they become more interdependent and more complex to operate. Also, an increasing number of disruptions due to system failures as well as climate changes can be expected in the future. As a consequence, many trains are cancelled and excessively delayed, and thus, many passengers are not reaching their destinations which compromises customers need for mobility. Currently, there is a rising need to quantify impacts of disruptions and the evolution of system performance. This review paper aims to set-up a field-specific definition of resilience in railway transport and gives a comprehensive, up-to-date review of railway resilience papers. The focus is on quantitative approaches. The review analyses peer-reviewed papers in Web of Science and Scopus from January 2008 to August 2019. The results show a steady increase of the number of published papers in recent years. The review classifies resilience metrics and approaches. It has been recognised that system-based metrics tend to better capture effects on transport services and transport demand. Also, mathematical optimization shows a great potential to assess and improve resilience of railway systems. Alternatively, data-driven approaches could be potentially used for detailed ex-post analysis of past disruptions. Finally, several rising future scientific topics are identified, spanning from learning from historical data, to considering interdependent critical systems and community resilience. Practitioners can also benefit from the review to understand a common terminology, recognise possible applications for assessing and designing resilient railway transport systems.

Actualmente, el 80% de los bienes comercializados son transportados por mar. Así como, el 40% del comercio intraeuropeo. Sin embargo, en marzo de 2020 este sector colapsó repentinamente, causando grandes distorsiones en el panorama productivo mundial. Por ello, el objeto de este estudio es identificar y valorar aquellos factores económicos y propios de la industria, que afectan al sector de transporte marítimo. Para llevar a cabo un estudio de panel se han tomado como referencia 23 países europeos (22 estados miembros de la UE y Reino Unido). Los resultados sugieren que el desarrollo económico, tanto de los países occidentales como de las economías en desarrollo, así como las mejoras de productividad contribuyen a aumentar el volumen de bienes gestionado por los puertos europeos. El aumento de la flota mundial, siempre y cuando se adapten las instalaciones portuarias y se aumenten el resto de los factores productivos implicados proporcionalmente, muestra signo positivo. Finalmente, el precio del petróleo conlleva efectos contractivos dada la falta de bienes sustitutivos. Así mismo, se espera que la conectividad de los puertos y la concentración de comercio fomenten la actividad de este sector, pero, esto no puede ser afirmado estadísticamente. Nowadays, 80% of traded goods are shipped by sea. In Europe, around 40% of goods traded among EU members, are seaborne. However, in March 2020 this sector was abruptly stopped causing important disturbances in global supply schemes. For this reason, this paper aims to identify and assess those economic and industry-related factors which shape the shipping industry and eventually, transportation costs. To conduct panel data analysis, 23 European countries (22 EU state members and the UK) have been taken as reference. Results suggest that western and developing economies’ growth, as well as productivity gains contributes to enlarge maritime transportation of goods. Also, global fleet growth affects positively port activity as long as, port facilities can accommodate larger ships and other production factors are proportionally enlarged. Finally, oil prices entail a contracting effect due to the lack of available substitutes. Other aspects like port connectiveness and trade concentration are expected to foster trade although, it cannot be statistically asserted. Graduado o Graduada Internacional en Administración y Dirección de Empresas / Graduado o Graduada Internacional en Economía por la Universidad Pública de Navarra Enpresen Administrazio eta Zuzendaritzan Nazioarteko Graduatua / Ekonomian Nazioarteko Graduatua Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoan

Not having an exact cost standard can present a problem for setting the shipping costs on a freight brokerage platform. Transport brokers who use their high market position to charge excessive commissions can also make it difficult to set rates. In addition, due to the absence of a quantified fare policy, fares are undervalued relative to the labor input. Therefore, vehicle owners are working for less pay than their efforts. This study derives the main variables that influence the setting of the shipping costs and presents the recommended shipping cost given by a price prediction model using machine learning methods. The cost prediction model was built using four algorithms: multiple linear regression, deep neural network, XGBoost regression, and LightGBM regression. R-squared was used as the performance evaluation index. In view of the results of this study, LightGBM was chosen as the model with the greatest explanatory power and the fastest processing. Furthermore, the range of the predicted shipping costs was determined considering realistic usage patterns. The confidence interval was used as the method of calculation for the range of the predicted shipping costs, and, for this purpose, the dataset was classified using the K-fold cross-validation method. This paper could be used to set the shipping costs on freight brokerage platforms and to improve utilization rates.

Long-haul truck electrification has attracted nascent policy support, but the potential health and climate impacts remain uncertain. Here, we developed an integrated assessment approach with high spatial-temporal (km and hourly) resolution to characterize the causal chain from truck operation to charging loads, electricity grid response, changes in emissions and atmospheric concentrations, and the resulting health and climate impacts across the United States. Compared to future diesel trucks, electrified trucking's net health benefits are concentrated only along the West Coast with a business-as-usual electricity grid. However, with an 80%-renewable electricity grid, most regions would experience net health benefits, and the economic value of avoided climate and health damages exceeds $5 billion annually, an 80% reduction relative to future diesel trucks. Electric trucks with larger batteries may increase health and climate impacts due to additional trips needed to compensate for the payload penalty, but a 2× improvement in the battery specific energy (to ∼320 Wh/kg) could eliminate the additional trips.

This paper addresses the integrated load planning and sequencing problem (LPSP) for double-stack trains. This decision problem occurs in intermodal terminals and consists in assigning containers from a storage area to slots on railcars of outbound trains and in determining the loading sequence of the handling equipment. Even though this a relevant operational problem, it has seen no attention in the operations research literature so far. Prior models either focus on single-stack railcars or treat the load planning and sequencing separately. By extending prior work on load planning, we propose four integer linear programming formulations differing in the number of constraints and variables. An extensive numerical study identifies two formulations that perform best in our setting with respect to the number of optimal solutions found in a given time limit and average solution time. With these formulations, we solve instances with up to 50 containers with a commercial general-purpose solver in less than 20 minutes. A case study based on real data provided by the Canadian National Railway Company highlights that the LPSP can reduce the number of container handlings in intermodal terminals compared to sequential solutions by on average 11.3% and 16.5% for gantry cranes and reach stackers, respectively.

В работе анализируются отечественный и зарубежный подходы к определению страхового интереса при заключении договора морского страхования. Рассмотрены основные субъекты страховых правоотношений – страхователи – и тот страховой интерес, которым они обладают. Сделан вывод о том, что к вопросу о наличии или отсутствии страхового интереса необходимо подходить с учетом всех обстоятельств дела в каждом конкретном случае., The paper analyzes domestic and foreign approaches to determining the insurance interest when concluding a marine insurance contract. The main subjects of insurance legal relations policyholders and the insurance interest they have are considered. The author concludes that the question of the presence or absence of an insurable interest should be approached considering all the circumstances of the case in each specific case.

Presented at the 8th International Physical Internet Conference (IPIC 2021) 14-16 June 2021, Virtual, Investigates the feasibility of goods transshipment with a joint usage of public mobility and freight urban vehicles. Assesses the potential benefit of a joint mobility system for goods delivery in urban areas.

The rapid onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 marked a challenging time for the US and its freight industry. Manufacturing slowed, consumer purchasing patterns changed, and for many, shopping moved online. The freight industry suffered a sharp decline in shipments, followed by a surprisingly quick rebound. The industry had to adapt quickly to meet fast-changing demand and supply patterns upended by global supply chain disruptions. This paper uses U.S. intermodal activity data, supported by in-depth interviews with leaders of railroads, intermodal carriers, equipment manufacturers, car leasing companies, shippers, and e-commerce players to characterize and assess how the rail industry met the challenge of this demand whiplash and other performance impediments. What emerges is a rich picture of the multi-actor intermodal supply chain, the impacts of COVID-19 on it, the performance of the logistics system in general, and railroads in particular during the pandemic. Industry interviews revealed that a handful of choke points, many of which were outside the rail industry, complicated supply chain responses to COVID-19. The paper shows how the rail industry was an essential component of pandemic resilience, demonstrating a high level of adaptability to meet consumer and business demands. Through the use of depth interviews it reveals the complexity of the intermodal supply chain, and it accurately foretells the subsequent disruptions that continued to plague that supply chain long after the initial impacts of the pandemic.

This paper tackles railway timetabling with infrastructure work possessions. It introduces the integrated Passenger and Freight Train Timetable Adjustment Problem (PF-TTAP) which handles both passenger as well as freight trains. To deal with possessions, passenger trains are typically retimed, reordered or partially cancelled, while for freight trains it is important to reach their destination, possibly using an alternative path. Alternative paths for freight trains are generated using the k-shortest path algorithm. To solve the PFTTAP, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem is developed to simultaneously retime, reroute and cancel trains in the network. The model aims at minimizing deviations from the original timetable and in particular selecting alternative freight paths with the least turning activities and noncommercial stops. The model was tested on the Dutch national railway network. The PF-TTAP model successfully created an alternative hour pattern satisfying all the railway stakeholders.

With increasing market competition and environmental awareness, the freight transport industry has become under ever-increasing pressure to achieve better sustainability. Through horizontal transport collaboration (HTC), companies can consolidate their freight into fewer numbers of trucks, leading to cost and environmental savings. Therefore, HTC has been considered a promising strategy to boost the sustainability of freight transport. However, the successful applications of HTC are hampered by multiple barriers. This study contributes to the literature by identifying and prioritizing these barriers through integrating the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Firstly, a holistic list of 30 barriers divided into five categories is identified using literature review. Secondly, FDM is used to reach a consensus of experts' opinions regarding the important barriers that warrant undergoing the assessment process by AHP. Thirdly, AHP is used to identify the priority rankings of the five barrier categories and their associated barriers. Finally, the proposed approach is used to examine the critical HTC barriers in a case study from Denmark.

We use the comprehensive freight survey data from 2003 and 2013 to analyze how the restructuring of logistics industry that occurred amid the broad trend of decentralization in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area has affected the efficiency of truck shipments. The analysis reveals that the negative effects of the outward migration of logistics facilities were offset by the increase in average shipment load and efficient spatial distribution of logistics facilities that occurred in parallel with the decentralization. As a result, the truck shipment efficiency improved by 4%.

The UK's highly privatised port system means that, while many of the issues in the port governance literature relevant to port concessions do not arise here, the respective roles of harbour authorities and port operators continue to be questioned. The concern in the UK is whose role it should be to monitor the capacity and service quality of the port sector, including how to govern the ways in which the different classes of port stakeholder interact. This paper describes and discusses the UK port sector, the main ports and cargo types, the governance system and recent developments. Recent changes in national policy are reviewed and potential new developments in governance are considered, reflecting on how the UK case represents some key theoretical considerations regarding infrastructure governance within a modern political system favouring private ownership and operation of the transport sector.

This study examines the causal relationship between wealth and transportation. The study first develops two alternating theoretical frameworks between wealth and transportation: one in which transportation is demand-driven and one in which transportation has dual role, demand-driven and supply-driving. Next, the study undertakes Granger-causality estimations for a panel of 18 countries over the period 1970–2017. It is found that the dominant Granger-causality relationship is bidirectional for majority of countries. The study also shows that there is high consistency in the Granger-causality relationship between wealth and transportation, and income and transportation. The study has three important contributions: First, the relationship between wealth and transportation is shown both theoretically and empirically. Second, transportation is shown to have dual role in an economy. Finally, it is shown that the wealth-transportation relationship and the transport-income relationship are equally robust and consistent., Highlights • The dominant type of Granger-causality between transportation and wealth is bidirectional. • Transportation has a dual role in an economy, demand-driven and supply-driving. • The wealth-transportation and the income-transportation relationships are equally robust and consistent. • Transportation may act à la technological progress against the law of diminishing marginal physical product.

The chapter deals with the wagonload freight transport. This kind of transport used to be the core business of railways during the last century, while in last decades it began to see its market share reduced in favour of other transport typologies (e.g. intermodal transport). Today wagonload transport seems no longer economically viable and the smaller and medium volumes used majorly road vehicles and sometimes combined transport. One of many possible ways to try reversing the trend is to convert the old and increasingly frequent abandoned marshalling yards in technological terminals able to receive different kinds of trains equipped with different technologies. These terminals are the Multi-Mode marshalling yards (MMM). This definition refers mainly to the mode of transport and the different railway operation. In this paper are presented the most relevant results obtained through the modelling the operation of a real marshalling yard sited in Hallsberg, Sweden. There are under introduction some innovative technologies and operative measures to quantify the improvements in operations that could contribute to a recovery of the wagonload transport, reducing the wagons mean transit time through the yards while increasing reliability.

El proceso de globalización requiere que los actores locales y regionales se incorporen en las redes y flujos económicos internacionales para lograr la competitividad y el desarrollo económico. Ello supone cambios que modifican los impactos y alcance de las infraestructuras de transporte. En el caso de la distribución de mercancías, el transporte aéreo supone un volumen reducido sobre el total de la carga internacional, donde solo unos cuantos aeropuertos centralizan la mayor parte del mismo. En España únicamente cuatro son relevantes en la gestión de carga aérea, en especial de la internacional. Esta investigación caracteriza los principales patrones de la carga aérea en los aeropuertos españoles mediante el análisis de su evolución reciente en torno a diferentes variables, evaluando algunos cambios notables que están modificando la jerarquía aérea. The process of globalization requires that local and regional actors must be incorporated into global economic networks and flows to achieve competitiveness and economic development. This implies changes that modify the impacts and scope of transport infrastructures. In the case of freight distribution, air transport is still a little part of international cargo volume, where only a few airports centralize most of this volume. In Spain, only four airports are relevant in the management of air cargo, especially for the international freight management. This research characterizes the main patterns of air cargo in Spanish airports. To achieve this goal, they are analyzed the recent evolution and patterns of air cargo transport around different variables, finding some notable changes that are modifying the air hierarchy.

Despite the fact that freight transport has a huge impact on the economy and the environment, Belgian datasets have always been scarce or restricted to very small a-spatial samples. Spatial data collected in Belgium for toll-paying trucks are here examined, and geographical structures and dynamics are extracted from this massive dataset. The originality of this dataset is its exhaustivity and its real-time approach: the location of all the trucks circulating in Belgium is collected every 30 s. The paper first relates to the methodology applied when using and transforming big data generated by On Board Units GNSS (cleaning, transforming and pre-processing). Second, it maps and comments on the movements (traffic) and stops of trucks within the whole country, providing a clear picture of the Belgian situation, useful for regional planners and logistics companies. Finally, the flows of trucks observed between Belgian locations enable the country to be divided into mathematical communities of places that interact the most. Analyses are performed for sub-categories based on the country of registration, underlining the spatial specificities of freight transit in Belgium. This exploratory spatial data analysis enables to reveal not only multi-level spatial structures associated with urban hierarchies and the transport infrastructure, but also firm locations or political organizations and to consider the complexity and interconnectivity of any measure taken for a more sustainable future. With a clear methodological framework to cope with the data pre-processing, this paper opens the way to various potential applications linked with freight transportation in Belgium.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse vertical integration in the rail sector using a combination of transaction cost economics (TCE), the resource-based view (RBV) and the relational view, through which rail wagons are viewed as “relationship specific assets”. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical analysis is based on a cross-case comparison of four case studies of intermodal operators in Europe, each exhibiting different levels of collaboration and integration between terminals, operators and sub-contractors. Findings – Viewing rail wagons as relationship specific assets rather than merely transaction specific (TCE) or firm specific (RBV) demonstrates that wagon ownership is not only a good indicator of the level of vertical cooperation but of the existence of trust and learning within a collaborative environment. Practical implications – The organisational setup is not derived purely from transaction or resource characteristics, but by the integration of processes through the purchase of assets that will be used to produce a service, with the expected levels of trust and commitment. In this sense, the role of the wagon as a relationship specific asset is a microcosm of the key elements of a successful intermodal transport system. Originality/value – As one of the key operational aspects of the rail sector is the use of expensive equipment and the relative responsibility for fixed and moveable assets, an analysis of the use of rail wagons as relationship specific assets allows a more dynamic understanding of vertical integration in the rail sector than currently provided by TCE or RBV alone.

The paper extends research into the importance of freight transport partnerships by considering the role of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in supporting sustainable urban freight initiatives. A review of the freight transport-related work that has been carried out in BIDs in central London is included. A detailed case study of a freight project in the Baker Street Quarter (BSQ) Partnership provides insight into work carried out in the multi-tenanted office and hotel sectors. The findings of this research in terms of freight transport and logistics activity patterns at the businesses studied together with the potential freight transport solutions identified are discussed.

The aim of this paper is to present the meaning of freight in a national and urban transport system. In the first part of this study there were shown issues and problems connected with coordinating the passenger traffic and loads in cities. Next, we personalized the data on the volume of transportation operations performed in road freight in European Union. There was also presented the influence of freight on the environment. An important element of this study is presenting the estimate for the years 2014-2020. This estimate covers forecasting the volume of transportation operations and greenhouse gas emissions due to transportation. The study ends with an analysis showing the strength and direction of the dependence between the volume of road transportation and emission of dangerous substances to the atmosphere in the European Union

Currently, the linkage of the four transportation modes, namely, road, rail, water and air on a quattro-modal freight hub is a low-priority issue with many uncertainties. The Austrian research project “Q4” focuses on this knowledge gap and on both potentials and limits of quattro-modal freight hubs. Therefore, the results of the Austrian research project outline in an exemplary manner the implementation opportunities for a quattro-modal freight hub within the central region of Linz-Wels-Steyr and the metropolitan region of Vienna.

Road freight transport in its current form has significant issues in terms of sustainability. These problems arise from an increase in density as well as from legislative decisions. Although not obvious, the parking of freight vehicles and legislation are connected. EU legislative decisions have reduced the sustainability of the parking system. The first and main goal of our study was to test the hypothesis that social law requirements negatively impact truck parking. The second important goal was to create a methodology that can determine the necessary number of parking spaces that comply with the requirements of social law. The method used for this research included the counting and numbering of parking spaces on specific routes in the EU compared with the intensity of freight vehicles on these routes. Our study shows that it is not possible to meet the requirements of social law and that the current state of freight vehicle parking is unsustainable. Planning sustainable parking areas in accordance with regulatory requirements is necessary, otherwise drivers will circumvent the rules, leading to a distortion of the freight transport market. In this paper, we also outline the proposed methodology for numbering parking spaces in a specific area.

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 &ldquo, A new system for sharing data between logistics companies and public infrastructure authorities: improving infrastructure while maintaining competitive advantage&rdquo, Previous studies ignored the fact that the primary step for delivering valuable and usable data processing systems is to consider the final user&rsquo, 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&rsquo, 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&rsquo, 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.

International audience; While many past studies analyze the changes in the spatial distribution of logistics facilities and provide insights on the factors that drive the migration of logistics facilities, only a few studies analyze the factors of location choice at the individual facility level. Furthermore, the differences among various facility types, with respect to the key locational characteristics that attract logistics facility developments, are still not clear. This research attempts to fill the research gap by analyzing the location choices for logistics facility development. Using the data from the Paris Region, we characterize the locations and activities of logistics facilities and estimate a logistics facility location choice model for each activity category. The analysis reveals the key locational characteristics that influence logistics facility locations, such as zoning regulations, wholesale job accessibility, population density, and the accessibility to autoroute (controlled-access highway), as well as the heterogeneity in the effects of these characteristics by activity category. Zoning and traditional clusters play a significant role for the locations of newly developed logistics facilities, which underlines the importance of public policies for logistics land use in the Paris region. The effect of the accessibility to population is identified for the group of facilities which serve for retail shops and end-consumers only under the assumption that alternative locations are limited to specialized economic activity/logistics zones, indicating that population accessibility is a secondary factor to the designation as the specialized zone. Zoning changes to/from economic activity/logistics zones may cause significant impacts on the spatial distribution of logistics facilities, and thus, the distribution of goods vehicle traffic flow.

An urban charging infrastructure for electric road freight operations is explored in this paper. The city of Cambridge, U.K. was chosen for demonstration but the same methodology could be used for other cities. The five Park and Ride bus routes, the refuse collection operations, and two home delivery operations are investigated. Data about existing operations were collected to define accurate drive cycles. Different vehicles are modeled for each operation and their performance is evaluated over the defined drive cycles. Different charging infrastructures are proposed for each operation to ensure that electric freight vehicles can be used for similar duty cycles as conventional vehicles. The additional power demand, additional load, capital cost needed, and the CO2 emissions savings for each case are calculated. The results are scaled up for the entire city and combined with estimated performance requirements for electrified urban deliveries. A complete urban charging network for road freight transportation at Cambridge would increase the power demand of the city by 21.6 MW (20.4% of the current peak) and the energy consumption by 50.6 GWh per year (6.3% of current consumption). The total capital cost is calculated at £149 million which is similar to the cost of other city's projects.

The modal share of intra-EU rail freight transport is less than 20% of the freight transport sector. The current rail freight situation is not only due to the existence of legal barriers restricting competition (including the track access regime, taxation, etc.), but also due to limitations of operational and technical nature, which impact the overall capacity and performance of the sector. In order to overcome these issues, Shift2Rail set a specific Innovation Programme 5 (IP5) focused on Technologies for Sustainable & Attractive European Rail Freight. In this context, the FR8RAIL project, is working on the “Development of Functional Requirements for Sustainable and Attractive European Rail”. To overcome these limitations, a holistic approach involving several technical areas, that form the backbone of the project approach. The outcomes of FR8RAIL will positively contribute to and support the Shift2Rail goals to strengthen the role of the freight rail transport.

Big data is expected to have a profound economic and societal impact in mobility and logistics. Examples in-clude 500 billion USD in value worldwide in the form of time and fuel savings, and savings of 380 megatons CO2. With freight transport activities projected to increase by 40% in 2030, transforming the current mobility and logistics processes to become significantly more efficient, will have a profound impact. A 10% efficiency improvement may lead to EU cost savings of 100 billion EUR. Despite these promises, interestingly only few mobility and logistics companies employ big data solutions as part of value creation and business processes. The TransformingTransport project (http://www.transformingtransport.eu) will demonstrate, in a realistic, meas-urable, and replicable way the transformations that big data can bring to the mobility and logistics market. Struc-tured into 13 different pilots, which cover areas of major importance for the mobility and logistics sector in Eu-rope, TransformingTransport validates the technical and economic viability of big data to reshape transport pro-cesses and services. To this end, TransformingTransport exploits access to industrial data sets from over 160 data sources, totalling 410,000 GB. Starting with the explanation the structure and aims of the 13 pilots, we provide the key main characteristics of the involved data sets in terms of variety, volume, and velocity. We explain the methodology of the project to achieve replicability and scalability of its results in particular to cope with data volume and velocity. We provide concrete examples for the innovation potential and impact of the project outcomes, including gains in operational efficiency, improved customer experience and new business models made possible when mobility meets big data. We conclude with a critical discussion on data management concerns.

The strategic place of Bangladesh in the proposed 21st century maritime Silk Road will attract the international traders where port transport service may offer to the neighbor countries for establishing industry also reducing shipping cost significantly. The objective of the OBOR initiative that proposed by China is to address the common needs of transport access for all and launch a new global transport networks by the combination of surface and water transportation system. In the aim of connecting two transport modes of OBOR, intermodal freight transportation system has a role to join two nodes of two modes to cover the line from Bangladesh to China and bid maritime logistics to the adjacent industry and offer for setting new industry to follow the easy access of seaports in Bangladesh. In this connection, Bangladesh has opportunity to draw lines from its seaports to China economy road by direct road haulage, road and rail, water and road combination to facilitate the port transport service. To follow the intermodal freight transportation system, it is possible to connect with India, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar where Bangladesh can do transport business with them and able to develop the area of those countries that are landlocked especially seven sisters of India and south-west part of China and southern part of Myanmar predictably. Recent initiative of India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh’s motor vehicles agreement (BBIN) is indicating cargo movement among the four South Asian neighbors for a common transport policy to develop the region where OBOR will play a vital role to connect all countries of the South Asia especially cost effective maritime access through Bangladeshi seaports. This paper tried to find out the secure access to and from the Bangladeshi seaports by all means of transport as per OBOR initiative of China by following two-fold research methodology qualitative and quantitative.

This study uses data from a large-scale freight survey conducted in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area to jointly analyze the spatial distribution of logistics facilities and their proximities to the locations of shipment origins and destinations. The aim of the study is to examine in detail the argument that logistics sprawls increase truck trip distances, and thus would incur negative impacts to the society. We found that between 1980 and 2003, logistics facilities in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area have migrated outward, albeit in a much smaller scale than the cases documented in some U.S. and European cities. Our analysis of the shipment data confirms that logistics sprawl increases truck travel. Furthermore, we found that, regardless of their age, logistics facilities tend to increase shipping distances as their distances to the urban center increase, due to the spatial mismatch between the locations of the facilities and the shipment origins and destinations. The findings underscore the importance of comprehensive efforts to coordinate land use, not only for logistics facilities but also other businesses that generate freight movements.

This paper examines the spatial and institutional characteristics of inland port development in Latin America, through an analysis of a detailed case study of the port of Veracruz in Mexico. It explores the spatial distribution of seaports and inland ports as well as the issues of customs clearance, rail regulation, cargo security and land acquisition, before discussing conflicting models of development depending on the priorities of inland and port actors. A supplementary aim of the paper is thus to develop a conceptual model of directional development in a geographical context of an emerging economy which traditionally has suffered from the absence of integrated policy frameworks for transport and logistics, leading to a lack of infrastructure investment and several constraints on hinterland accessibility. Findings reveal that port actors (both port authorities and terminal operators) are being proactive in response to a changing transport and logistics environment, in a setting where railway regulation and cargo security play critical roles in establishing hinterland integration. Reform to customs clearance processes is ongoing to allow more effective container flow management between the port and the hinterland, but the major obstacle to implementing an efficient loop is the fragmentation of the rail sector in Mexico.

Tendering procedures for concession of port terminals to private operators have been the subject of considerable interest during the last decade. As a consequence, keys to effective port governance, particularly the landlord model, are fairly well understood, even standardised to some degree. By contrast, intermodal terminal contracts have been found to be quite varied, with little standardisation of procedures, requirements, risks, incentives or contracts even within a single country.This paper applies lessons from the study of port terminal concession contracts to the intermodal sector. The World Bank port reform toolkit is used to create a framework with 72 provisions, which is then matched against five intermodal terminal concession contracts. The analysis reveals several uncertainties in intermodal concession contracts, relating particularly to a lack of specified provisions on performance monitoring and measurement, open access to users, infrastructure maintenance, service marketing and hand back procedures. The paper identifies how the port concession framework used in this paper can be adapted for use with intermodal terminals, as the first step towards developing a global standard such as that used in the port sector.

Retail traffic is one of the main drivers for the growth of intermodal transport services in the UK. The aim of this paper is to understand the key factors underpinning this modal shift in order to learn lessons for other market and geographical contexts. Successful retail intermodal logistics involves many actors, thus this paper is based on semi-structured interviews with major retailers, third-party logistics providers (3PLs) and rail operators, supplemented by document analysis. The qualitative data are analysed via a conceptual framework derived from the literature. Despite past successes and the presence of drivers for future growth, the paper identifies many operational issues without current solutions and the presence of ongoing public subsidy. The major conclusion is that the importance of 3PLs, aggregation and multi-user platforms must be recognised by transport planners in supporting the use of intermodal transport by retailers and other large shippers.

Environmental pollution is one of the main restrictions of sustainable development. We examine whether or not freight transport is sensitive of the environment in Australia, particularly in the state of Victoria. Because, freight transports is one of the significant factors of environmental pollution. In the study we discuss the decision taken by the government of Victoria; and what kind of measurement is applied by the government. We also discuss which policy should be followed to achieve green transportation. The aim of the study is to determine the effects of environmental measurement on growing of the transport sector. The economics of Australia has a structure growing fast, in order to parallel the increasing growth of the transport sector. It tries to apply Kyoto protocol to the transport sector. In conclusion, the environmental pollution and CO2 emissions decrease in Australia although the transport sector grows day by day.

Freight flows are in essence a result from the exchange of goods between producers and consumers and the transporting firms moving the goods. This essentially constitutes a market interaction among different type of firms, differentiated by many attributes like industry type, size, location and role in the supply chain. A usual final outcome of such an interaction manifests itself in the form of Production-Consumption (PC) matrices, tabulating regional production and consumption pairs for the different goods and geographical region being simulated. It is often the case that this information is obtained only at an aggregate level, either due to firms' unwillingness to share their trading information or the high cost of obtaining this data or both. Different techniques are used to disaggregate such data. This process often implies over simplified assumptions. In this paper we present a bottom up approach to simulate this goods interchange process between production and consumption firms. The proposed model is based on an offer negotiation and evaluation process among three types of firms; production firms, consumption firms and carrying (transport) firms. The interaction is based on actual firms' decisions. Agent based simulation technique is used to facilitate capturing some behavioral aspects of the different agents (firms) in the model. One outcome of this model is a set of PC matrices which can be used in further transport modelling steps. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Single Wagonload (SWL) is still a major component of the Swiss freight transportation system. To hold the market share of the SWL system a reduction of production costs and an increasing quality is needed. To evaluate alternative production schemes and the effects of technological innovations a simulation tool is necessary. Since there are no suitable tools available which cover all needs for a SWL simulation, the IVT developed a new agent-based tool called GuterSim on the basis of the existing software MATSim. GuterSim models the routing of the freight wagons, as agents, according to the routes in the real SWL network and the production schemes. It is a scalable model with two network levels and an integrated approach. This paper presents the following achievements: Modeling existing timetables and routing of freight trains; opportunity for improvements of train routings and schedules to optimize the existing productions scheme; integrating the capacity restrictions of the infrastructure to check the realizability of the improvements; automatic timetable generation on the existing network; and automatic generation of new production systems. A case study is presented to prove model's application. The work is based on real data from the SWL Swiss network which includes infrastructure data, schedules, rolling stock and locomotive data. Therefore the conclusions are based on real freight demand within the Swiss freight network. GuterSim is proved as a tool to improve SWL production schemes and scalable to other freight networks with fixed schedules.

This survey reviews the current state of the economic literature, assessing the impact of transport policies on growth, inclusion, and sustainability in a developing country context. The findings are summarized and methodologies are critically assessed, especially those dealing with endogeneity issues in empirical studies. The specific implementation challenges of transport policies in developing countries are discussed.

Models supported by ICT tools are developed to raise collaboration and share of resources in urban logistics process, in a kind of "Logistics-as-uber" concept, which allows implementing operations such as “GoodsPooling” con-cept, equivalent to carpooling concept: daily use of home/work trips to pick and deliver goods on the way. This solution can also be integrated with the use of Taxis or even persons in a public transportation in a sharing solution of persons and goods transportation. This project aims to develop a conceptual model based on already existing city mobility alternatives to reduce dedicated transportation of goods. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

The Øresund and the planned Fehmarnbelt fixed links have recently adopted a set of standards that can significantly raise the operating efficiency and capacity of freight by rail. These standards are explained in the context of the German–Scandinavian railway corridor and in comparison to the European Technical Specifications for Interoperability. Using a quantitative model, the mass and volume load capacity per train are calculated. Compared to present constraining limitations in the German–Scandinavian corridor, the mass load capacity per train can be increased by 64%, and the volume load capacity by up to 220%.

Despite a concentration of container traffic in the southeast of the UK over the last few decades, regional ports are attempting new development strategies to capture or retain specific traffic segments. These include intra-European short-sea traffic and a potentially increasing feeder market. These trends are reflected in the movement of different container types, which result in a number of planning challenges related to changing infrastructural and operational requirements. This paper uses highly disaggregated data on container type movements to address three issues that can inform these planning challenges. First, the imbalance of trade resulting in empty container repositioning; second, the requirement for gauge-cleared rail routes to cater for the increasing proportion of high-cube containers; and third, the specialisation of European short-sea traffic at secondary UK ports. The results reveal the disproportionate repositioning of empty containers at Scottish ports and the importance of 45 ft, high-cube and pallet-wide containers at regional ports, highlighting their focus on intra-European short-sea traffic and raising difficulties relating to their lower quality of landside infrastructure (particularly rail) in comparison to the large south-eastern ports. The potential repercussions on hinterland infrastructure development raise questions about both public and private sector responses to regional port development.

The effects of enabling the use of longer road vehicle combinations and/or longer trains in an intermodal freight corridor that extends from central Sweden to the Ruhr area in Germany are studied. Transports are designed based on the smallest vehicle dimensions in the transport chain, currently 18.75 m for trucks in Germany and 650 m for trains in Sweden. The question that is investigated is whether/how the transport system can be improved by using longer vehicles for road transports, rail transports or both. Ten scenarios are simulated with the help of the Swedish national freight model, Samgods. In Scenario Road 1 it is assumed that 25.25 m-long trucks are allowed on the entire road corridor (that also includes a ferry link). It is further assumed that the longer trucks can access the road corridor in Germany via terminals. In Scenario Rail 1, 750 m-long freight trains can be operated in the rail corridor that goes via Jutland/Denmark. In the combined Road 1 + Rail 1 scenario it is assumed that both longer trucks and longer trains can be used in the corridor. The effects on the freight flows, modal split, logistics costs and CO2 emissions are studied and rough socioeconomic analyses are carried out.

In this paper, a multi-step model related to freight movements in urban areas is formalised to solve a Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW). In modelling terms, the VRPTW is formulated to consider the optimum paths between all the customers combined to determine the best vehicle routes. The optimum path search with a selective mono-criterion approach is tackled. A model for forecasting the link cost is calibrated. Some procedures (traffic assignment, real-time system measurement, reverse assignment) for estimating system performance in terms of travel cost are also proposed. In terms of procedures, the VRPTW is solved with a genetic algorithm and two different crossover operators are reported and used simultaneously. A real case application is made, comparing the results of the proposed procedure with the routes of a truck (

This paper presents a methodology to evaluate rail-road freight policies such as new services and/or incentives for long- distance freight transport by using a mixed what-if/what-to approach. It uses a specific mode-service choice model to share the freight demand among alternatives (rail-road combined transport, maritime Ro-Ro and road transport) and a service network design model to identify new rail-road freight services. This methodology is designed to be easily integrated within a Decision Support System to allocate the freight transport policies. Finally, in order to show the applicability of the proposed approach, some application examples carried out to support Italian Ministry of Transport in the development of the new Italian National Transport Plan are presented.