The Impact of Urban Freight Transport: A Definition of Sustainability from an Actor's Perspective

Abstract

This paper presents a definition of sustainable urban freight transport (SUFT), based on the existing theories and concepts, and develops an indicator set that describes SUFT. The definition of SUFT makes a categorisation of actions possible which enables actors to select effective strategies towards SUFT. The indicator set consists of two levels: impact indicators – which describe how the urban freight transport violates the principles of sustainability; and performance indicators – which describe different categories determining the characteristics and performance of the urban transport system. A literature study analyses the characteristics determining the performance of actors in the urban freight transport chain. Knowing the current state and improvement potential of the urban freight transport system are prerequisites for defining successful strategies and implementing effective actions.     

Non‐compatible chemicals as cargoes in industry,on road,rail, and water

Toronto is to have an urban transit system with a passenger carrying capacity which fills the gap between the capacity of the subway and the capacity of the car and bus. Correspondingly, in the words of the Premier of Ontario, the system will “make possible an attractive alternative to high‐rise, high‐density living and urban sprawl. . . .” Furthermore, the new system is sufficiently economical to provide “. . . an encouragement to growth in appropriate areas, rather than merely responding to growth as it occurs . . .”

The decision to have such a system is the culmination of some years of major transportation activities in the Province, which included the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Transportation Study (MTARTS) of 1962. This study pursued both urban expressways and public transport solutions to the movement of people in Metropolitan Toronto.

The urban expressways programmes ran into difficulties, on environmental terms, when strong opposition from community groups was met on proposed routes. A climax came when the Ontario Government halted the construction of the controversial Spadina expressway in June 1971. However, the programmes of public transport solutions met with great success. The Toronto subway and its extensions, together with the change in land values along the route, has become a classic success story. So, too, has the introduction of the GO Train Service (Government of Ontario train service). This pioneered a combination of commuter rail service and integrated feeder buses and today replaces some 14,000 cars each day along the lakeshore highways.

The success of the subway and the GO train coupled with the difficulties experienced by the urban expressways programme, gave rise to the realisation that a better city through public transport rather than the car, was practicable. However, subways were too expensive and they needed a large patronage in a narrow corridor. Accordingly, an intermediate capacity transit system was sought.

The paper describes the programme of activities involved in the choice of the system and describes the technical specification which the system will enjoy. In particular, the demonstration installation which is to be set‐up in Toronto is described in detail, together with the plans to instal some 56 miles over five routes in Metropolitan Toronto.     

Optimization of transport investment and pricing policies: the role of transport pricing in network design

This paper investigates the role of transport pricing in network design and describes two facts about flow pattern in a transportation system. The first, illustrated by an example of Braess paradox, is that adding a new link to the network does not necessarily minimize the total travel time. The second is that introducing of appropriate toll pricing may reduce not only the total network time but also the travel time for each individual traveller. It follows with the investigations of different system objectives and different pricing policies (only toll pricing and distance‐based pricing are considered), and shows how they affect the system performance and flow pattern. Lastly, a systematic optimization process is proposed for integrated planning of transport network and pricing policies.     

Trip generation of vulnerable populations in three Canadian cities: a spatial ordered probit approach

This paper provides an analysis of trip generation of three vulnerable groups: single-parent families, low income households, and the elderly. It compares the mobility of these groups to that of the general population in three Canadian urban areas of Hamilton, Montreal and Toronto, based on data from large-sample metropolitan transport surveys. An ordered probit model with spatially expanded coefficients is used for the analysis. Spatial expansion shows that there are spatial mobility trends for elderly populations and low-income populations even after socio-economic attributes are accounted for. Such spatial differences are not generally found for single parent families. This novel spatial analysis provides clues as to where vulnerable populations may experience greater degrees of social exclusion. It provides information to help prioritize transportation infrastructure projects or other social programs to take into account the needs of vulnerable populations with the lowest levels of mobility.     

Systematic budget allocation for transportation construction projects: a case in Taiwan

It has always been a daunting task for any government to allocate the budgets for public infrastructure effectively so as to maximize the benefits of the limited resources. The most important contribution this paper makes is to conduct an empirical study of the budget allocations of the six region-based road system construction plans in northern Taiwan using the transportation budget allocation model devised in this paper. After reviewing the results, the experts consulted while preparing this paper believe that these results are both objective and able to meet the actual requirements. The competent authority also believes that they are better than those obtained using their original approach. In particular, the construction of this model takes into consideration the highest-level supervisors. To a certain degree, it caters for the practices in budget allocation so that the managers are able to assume the authority corresponding to their responsibility concerning management efficiency and final outcomes.     

Trip distribution for limited destinations: a case study for grocery shopping trips in the Netherlands

In this paper, we introduce a new trip distribution model for destinations that are not homogeneously distributed. The model is a gravity model in which the spatial configuration of destinations is incorporated in the modeling process. The performance was tested on a survey with reported grocery shopping trips in the Dutch city of Almelo. The results show that the new model outperforms the traditional gravity model. It is also superior to the intervening opportunities model, because the distribution can be described as a function of travel costs, without increasing the computational time. In this study, the distribution was described by a simple function of Euclidean distance, which provides a good fit to the survey data. The slope of the distribution is quite steep. This shows that most trips are made to nearby supermarkets. However, a significant fraction of trips, mainly made by car, still goes to supermarkets further away. We argue that modeling of these trips by the new method will improve traffic flow predictions.     

Factors associated with bicycle ownership and use: a study of six small U.S. cities

As a means of transportation and as a form of physical activity, bicycling generates benefits to the bicyclist as well as to the community as a whole. Bicycling now accounts for less than 1 percent of all trips for all purposes in the U.S., but evidence from other western countries suggests that under the right conditions, bicycling levels can be significantly higher. Indeed, the experiences of some U.S. cities suggest that it is possible to create conditions conducive to higher levels of bicycling even in the U.S. However, the extent to which bicycle investments have contributed to bicycling levels in these communities has not been rigorously assessed. The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of the determinants of bicycle ownership and use as a basis for identifying ways to promote bicycling. A cross-sectional study of six cities was designed to test the importance of bicycle infrastructure and other physical environment factors relative to individual factors and social environment factors, using a nested logit model to examine ownership and use decisions jointly. The results show strong effects of individual attitudes and physical and social environment factors on bicycle ownership and use.     

Parameter transfer of common-metric attributes in choice analysis: implications for willingness to pay

There is a growing literature that promotes the presence of a mix of compensatory and semi-compensatory processing strategies in the way that individuals evaluate packages of attributes in real or hypothetical markets, and make choices. This paper proposes a specification for the utility form in a choice model to test if, given a pair of attributes with a common-metric (e.g., components of travel time or cost), the attribute with the dominating level defines the marginal (dis)utility that is assigned to both attributes. We refer to this processing strategy as a parameter transfer rule. We use a stated choice data set, in the context of car driving individuals choosing between tolled and non-tolled routes, to estimate a mixed logit model which incorporates the presence of the parameter transfer rule and the conventional fully compensatory rule, both existing up to a probability. We find that if this parameter transfer heuristic is part of the mix, the WTP is more than 30% higher, on average, than when only a fully compensatory rule is imposed. We also contrast the parameter transfer rule with other semi-compensatory heuristics which have been investigated in other papers, and show that the finding adds further support to the accumulating evidence that a semi-compensatory attribute processing rules tend to result in higher mean WTP estimates compared to the fully compensatory attribute processing rule.