Shifting urban freight deliveries to the off-peak hours: a review of theory and practice

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the literature on off-peak hour deliveries (OPHD). The review identifies different approaches and policy levers used in the past, such as the laissez-faire approach, a road pricing approach, an incentives approach, and a regulatory approach. The paper also identifies different delivery reception schemes discussed in the literature. The authors complement the theory with a synthesis of pilot tests and the analysis of a set of interviews with practitioners (from the public sector and other organisations) in charge of OPHD programmes. The results from this review show the potential benefits that these programmes could bring about, the challenges faced in the early stages – along with potential solutions – and the significant progress that has been made in this domain in the last decade. According to the review, the results from the pilot tests tend to be positive, suggesting the importance of these programmes to reach more efficient and sustainable transportation systems.     

Influence of the weather on mode choice in corridors with time-varying congestion: a mixed data study

Studies that link human behaviour to the influence of weather have historically been conducted in such fields as tourism, marketing and leisure. In most studies that jointly examine weather and the mode of transport, only open-air transportation has been considered (for example, bicycle, motorcycle or walking). This focus, together with the habitual use of data collected with automatic devices and a lack of studies that analyse this issue using stated preference data, are the main reasons motivating this paper. This paper aims to analyse the influence of weather and the density of traffic on the choice of transport mode. A case study is conducted in an access/egress corridor located in the city of Barcelona (Spain). Two data sources were used: revealed preference and stated preference data. Modelling techniques using mixed data enabled the stronger features from both data sources to be captured. Finally, we discuss how the selection of different alternative specific constants in models estimated using mixed data could generate unrealistic forecasting results if environmental changes are expected in the actual market.     

Metropolitan railways: present characteristics and future prospects

Urban bus operation in Chile is totally deregulated. This is the only example in the world where access to the urban bus transport market is totally free, and where the government does not exercise any control over the fares. This policy has been implemented progressively since 1979. Ten years later, it is possible to draw some conclusions from the experience. To summarize these conclusions, one could say that (i) the impact of deregulation has been almost exactly the opposite of what was expected: fares have risen and the diversity of services has been reduced, (ii) the reasons for this discrepancy lie less in the action of a cartel than in the specifics of urban transport supply and (iii) there is probably more to be expected from a refined deregulation policy, taking into account these specifics, than from a drive back to the traditional regulation system.     

Computing 4D near-optimal trajectories for dynamic air traffic flow management with column generation and branch-and-price

Abstract

The current air traffic system faces recurrent saturation problems. Numerous studies are dedicated to this issue, including the present research on a new dynamic regulation filter holding frequent trajectory optimisations in a real-time sliding horizon loop process. We consider a trajectory optimisation problem arising in this context, where a feasible four-dimensional (4D) trajectory is to be built and assigned to each regulated flight to suppress sector overloads while minimising the cost of the chosen policy. We model this problem with a mixed integer linear programme and solve it with a branch-and-price approach. The pricing sub-problem looks for feasible trajectories in a dynamic three-dimensional (3D) network and is solved with a specific algorithm based on shortest path labelling algorithms and on dynamic programming. Each algorithm is tested on real-world data corresponding to a complete traffic day in the European air traffic system; experimental results, including computing times measurement, validate the solution process.     

Transit network design using a genetic algorithm with integrated road network and disaggregated O–D demand data

Transportation - Evolutionary algorithms have been used extensively over the past 2 decades to provide solutions to the Transit Network Design Problem and the Transit Network and Frequencies...     

A data-driven approach for origin–destination matrix construction from cellular network signalling data: a case study of Lyon region (France)

Transportation - Spatiotemporal data, and more specifically origin–destination matrices, are critical inputs to mobility studies for transportation planning and urban management purposes....     

Potential economic benefits of using a weather ship routing system at Short Sea Shipping

This contribution investigates the economic benefits of using weather ship routing on Short Sea Shipping (SSS) activities. The investigation is supported with the development of a ship routing system based on pathfinding algorithm, the parametrization of the wave effect on navigation, and the use of high-resolution meteo-oceanographic predictions. The optimal ship routing analysis is investigated in a European SSS system: the link between Spanish and Italian ports. The results show the economic benefits using ship routing in SSS during energetic wave episodes. The rate of cost savings may reach 18% of the total costs under particular bad weather conditions in the navigation area. The work establishes the basis of further developments in optimal route applied in relatively short distances and its systematic use in the SSS maritime industry.     

Latent stage model for carsharing usage frequency estimation with Montréal case study

In order to predict the monthly usage frequency of members of a car-sharing scheme by analysing the gradual change of behaviour over time, a new model is proposed based on the Markov Chains model with latent stages. The model accounts for changing patterns of frequency from soon after signing up to later stages by including five latent user ‘life stages’. In applying the model to panel data from Montreal’s free-floating carsharing service the authors calculate each user’s ’lifetime’ applied to ‘system operation time’, the time period since the start of the scheme. Three-fold validation reveals effective performance of the model for both lifetime and system operation time dimensions. The model is further applied to illustrate how previous carsharing experience and the extension of the scheme to a larger area can affect usage frequency changes. We conclude that this approach is effective for usage prediction for novel transport schemes.

     

La sous-traitance dans le transport routier de marchandises: les enseignements de l’enquête ECHO (2004)

Road haulage is nowadays the main transport mode in France, demonstrating its ability to fulfil shippers’ demands. Among other success factors, the possibility for large companies to subcontract to very small ones, with very low fixed costs and greater flexibility, is often quoted as a major advantage. The ECHO survey, conducted in France in 2004, gives information about 10000 shipments made by 3000 shippers. This survey allows the analysis of subcontracting, by following at every stage how each shipment is given to another carrier by contract. The analysis shows that some subcontracts are mainly cost driven, but others aim at using the specialised skills of a particular haulier. For every transport segment (single parcel delivery service, parcel delivery service, less than truck load, full truck load), subcontracting is described in terms of sizes of the companies involved, services provided and the reasons for subcontracting. These results describe the main features of several different types of subcontracts.     

Transport ferroviaire régional en Allemagne. L’exemple de la région de Leipzig

The German regional rail passenger transport (SPNV) is, eighteen years after the railway reform of 1993, a dynamic one. Over the last fifteen years, passengers have increased by +43% and trains.km by +28%. There are more than 30 railway operators. Tenders drive this dynamism and newcomer’s market share is approaching 25% in 2011 (in train.km). The Leipzig region, which has seen the birth of long-distance rail transport with the great line Leipzig-Dresden inspired by F. List (1834), participate in this revival: since 2010, two operators, DB Regio and Veolia, share regional rail services. What early lessons can be drawn for the reform of the French TER?