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 truck 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. Tour data indicate that there is no clear relationship between tour distance, percentage of empty trips, and percentage of empty distance. 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 truck kilometers traveled.

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