Assessing impacts of greenhouse gas abatement measures on urban freight

Abstract A study to investigate the sensitivity of urban freight patterns to various greenhouse abatement policy measures is underway with Metropolitan Sydney being used as the case study area due to the availability of detailed freight and passenger network level data and models at the New South Wales Transport Data Centre (TDC). The study is designed to build on methodologies under development by TDC to derive freight traffic due to total requirements for freight and relative requirements for categories of goods from actual or forecasted commodity flows and associated information. This paper describes the selection of candidate policy measures for investigation and presents the methodology and processes used in modelling their impacts on urban freight patterns. The discussion will focus on six scenarios which provide policy instruments for application to a 1996 base case. Some results of the modelling of these scenarios will then be presented and issues arising from the study discussed. Special attention will be given to the relative changes in travel characteristics and emissions brought about by these instruments.