Assessing The Reproducibility Of Freight Vehicle Flows Using Tour And Trip-Based Models For Shipment-To-Vehicle Flow Conversion

Advances in urban freight modeling and the availability of freight vehicle operations data have enabled the use of disaggregate models to evaluate urban delivery policies and solutions. This research assesses different model specifications for urban freight simulation and their influence on flow reproducibility, with a focus on trip- and tour-based models for converting shipments to vehicle flows. Using vehicle operations data from Singapore, we study the performance of three models: Trip-based model, Tour-formation heuristic, and Delivery sequencing model. A comparison between the observed and estimated zone-to-zone vehicle flows indicates the inadequacy of using a Trip-based model for urban freight simulation and reveals potential estimation biases associated with select model specifications.