Freight modelling: an overview of international experiences

Abstract

Compared to passenger transportation modelling, the field of freight modelling is relatively young and developing quickly into different directions all over the world. The objective of this paper is to summarize the international state of the art in freight modelling, with a focus on developments in Europe. We start with a brief description of key issues in freight policy that create a growing demand for freight demand modelling. Some of these are common to the freight agendas in many places of the world, some are more articulated to the European situation. In order to build up our report systematically, we first sketch a conceptual framework of the freight system. We identify 3 emerging areas of innovation in freight modelling which have been driven by the European transport policy context and are relevant for US freight policy as well: 1) freight-economy linkages, 2) logistics behavioural modelling and 3) freight trips and networks. We describe the state of the art in these areas and propose areas of further modelling work. We conclude the paper with a summary of our main ideas and recommendations, including the challenge to create new data sources about freight flows that have not been available before.