Modeling Urban Commercial Vehicle Daily Tour Choice Using the Texas Commercial Vehicle Survey Data

Freight transport (mainly commercial vehicles) plays an important role in urban transportation system and contributes to traffic congestion, pollution, infrastructure damage, etc. The complex nature of urban commercial vehicle movements has made modeling their activities a challenge. Recent studies have suggested that activity-based models are capable of aiding in understanding actors’ (i.e., shippers, carriers and receivers) behavior on delivering goods or service. This paper attempts to gain insights into urban commercial vehicle daily tour scheduling by using a joint discrete choice model, which associates commercial vehicle activities in urban areas with land use, shipment demand, and shipment type, etc. Each tour is defined as the entire trip chain of the commercial vehicle in a given day. Schedule choices for each tour are classified into eight classes defined by three dimensions: vehicle type, departure time, and trip chaining pattern/topology. The data used in the model development are from the Texas Commercial Vehicle Surveys in San Antonio, Amarillo Valley, Lubbock and Austin during 2005 and 2006, which accounted for a total of 13,802 trips made by 1,711 commercial vehicles. Model results show that daily commercial vehicle tour scheduling decisions are highly influenced by cargo type, land use and the regional demographic characteristics. The study sheds light in urban commercial vehicle activities as well as factors that influence them. The study findings should prove to be useful to planners and policy makers in assisting them to identify strategies to facilitate smooth urban commercial vehicle movements.