Autonomous and integrated passenger and freight transport (APFIT) is a promising approach to tackle both, traffic and last-mile-related issues such as environmental emissions, social and spatial conflicts or operational inefficiencies. By conducting an agent-based simulation, we shed light on this widely unexplored research topic and provide first indications regarding influential target figures of such a system in the rural area of Sarstedt, Germany. Our results show that larger fleets entail inefficiencies due to suboptimal utilization of monetary and material resources and increase traffic volume while higher amounts of unused vehicles may exacerbate spatial conflicts. Nevertheless, to fit the given demand within our study area, a comparatively large fleet of about 25 vehicles is necessary to provide reliable service, assuming maximum passenger waiting times of six minutes to the expense of higher standby times, rebalancing effort, and higher costs for vehicle acquisition and maintenance.

<p>The rise of technologies and the Internet have provided opportunities to connect logistics demand and supply using the crowd. In this system, named crowd-shipping (CS), a requester doing the shipping selects a courier via a platform. In reality, the idea of CS has been explored by many firms over the last several years. However, there is a lack of fundamental understanding of the issues related to: (1) the markets that are likely to be influenced by CS; (2) the considerations that govern the success of this system; and the (3) the impacts of CS and its design.</p><p><br></p> <p>To address these issues, there is a need of understanding CS system's stakeholders, such as requesters' (i.e. senders') and potential couriers' (i.e. driver-partners') behaviors as well as operations and management of CS firms. This research will address these gaps by conducting a survey to understand driver-partners' behaviors and requesters' behaviors given the CS services availability in the logistics market. Then, pricing and compensation strategies are designed and modeled based on behavior rules of supply and demand generations as well as various CS market penetrations. As such, this research addresses the CS industry in a triad of supply, demand, and operations and management.</p><p><br></p> <p>This research uses advanced econometrics, statistics analysis, mixed integer optimization, and data science techniques to analyze data and generate insights. The contributions of this research are to identify the contributing factors that impact the emerging logistics service. This research also reveals factors that influence the current and future shipping behaviors of requesters, as well as influencing factors of the individuals' willingness to work as driver-partners. The integrated matching and routing models have been developed to examine different pricing and compensation strategies under several market penetration scenarios. `Individual' price and compensation have found to provide the highest profit for CS platform providers.</p><p><br></p> <p>This research provides meaningful knowledge for stakeholders, especially for the CS firms to develop business strategies. Several remarkable benefits that CS firms can obtain include: focusing on some specific population groups to recruit driver-partners (e.g. people with children, middle-aged people having lower incomes, or no car ownership); addressing certain market segments to promote CS services (e.g. tight-window delivery packages, peripheral products, or personal health and medicine items); implementing `individual' or `flatted' pricing and compensation strategies depending on the time of the day, the day of the week, or the market penetration; and improving platform features to incorporate requesters' and driver-partners' expectations.</p>

O presente estudo agrega os dados geoespaciais livres, cedidos pela prefeitura de São Paulo, IBGE, CNAE, RAIS, entre outros e particulares, cedidos pela empresa Maplink, com os recursos dos Sistemas de Informações Geográficas - SIG, para planejamento de Transportes. A megacidade de São Paulo com mais de dez milhões de habitantes tem milhares de estabelecimentos comerciais para atender a demanda dessa população, que precisa ser abastecidos. Os veículos de carga que abastecem, além de afetarem o trânsito e mobilidade urbana, emitem poluentes. O objetivo é hierarquizar as áreas da megacidade de São Paulo (Brasil) com características potenciais para alta concentração de poluentes decorrentes da circulação dos veículos de carga para abastecer os estabelecimentos comerciais. A metodologia correlaciona espacialmente os dois conjuntos de dados (localização de estabelecimentos comerciais e a circulação de veículos de transporte de cargas) utilizando ferramentas de análises espaciais, baseada em Kernel Density Estimator - KDE, a análise de multicritério, como a Analytic Hierarchy Process - AHP para avaliar como estes duas variáveis estão relacionadas, e também a lógica Fuzzy para calcular esses dados. Os resultados obtidos demonstra que as avenidas e rodovias do município de São Paulo possuem alta concentração de poluentes, sendo utilizadas como rotas para os veículos de carga que tanto fazem do município sua origem e/ou destino, as regiões que possuem alta concentração de poluentes atmosféricos são: Cerqueira César, Parque Dom Pedro II e Ibirapuera, com destaque também na Marginal Tietê e Marginal Pinheiros, além da zona leste (Itaquera e Itaim Paulista). / This study adds free geospatial data, granted by the city of São Paulo, IBGE, CNAE, RAIS, among others and individuals assigned by Maplink company with the capabilities of Geographic Information Systems - GIS for Transportation planning. The megacity of São Paulo with more than ten million inhabitants has thousands of shops to meet the needs of this population, which must be supplied. The cargo vehicles that supply, as well as affect the traffic and urban mobility, emit pollutants. The goal is to prioritize areas of the megacity of São Paulo (Brazil) with potential characteristics for high concentration of pollutants resulting from the movement of cargo vehicles to supply shops. The methodology spatially correlate the two sets of data (location of commercial establishments and the movement of cargo transport vehicles) using tools of spatial analysis based on Kernel Density Estimator - KDE, the multi-criteria analysis, as the Analytic Hierarchy Process - AHP to evaluate how these two variables are related, and also fuzzy logic to calculate this data. The results show that the avenues and highways of São Paulo have a high concentration of pollutants, being used as routes for freight vehicles that both make the city their origin and / or destination, the regions with high concentration of air pollutants they are: Cerqueira Cesar, Parque Dom Pedro II and Ibirapuera, highlighting also the Marginal Tiete and Pinheiros, besides the east side (Itaquera and Itaim Paulista).

The objective of this thesis is to study the sources of discrepancy between the actual traffic in motorways under concession schemes and the traffic forecast ex-ante. The demand forecast for a specific project is the main variable influencing its realization. From a public sector perspective, socio-economic evaluations are driven by demand forecasts, which gives the basis for choose and hierarchy public projects in order to maximise social welfare. From a private sector perspective, traffic forecasts are the base of financial evaluation and toll setting.Despite its importance and the numerous and important developments in the field, the differences of forecast and ex-post traffic are usually very high. Some recent studies show that differences as big as 20% are much more the rule than the exception.A huge amount of uncertainty is associated with the forecasting exercise. First because transport is a derived demand and depends on many exogenous variables, also uncertain; because modelling is and simplification exercise, implies many assumptions and rely on field data, many times incomplete or of low quality; moreover, modelling human (in this case users) behaviour is always a dangerous enterprise.Although these arguments could explain at least the larger part of errors associated with forecasts, one can wonder whether the agents implicated in the forecast would or could use this uncertainty strategically in their favour. In a competition for the field scheme (bids), the bidder may overestimate the demand in order to reduce the toll included in the bid. This strategic behaviour can introduce a high bias in forecasts. Also, overoptimistic (or overpessimistic) forecasters may introduce a bias in the forecast.We propose to focus in turn on the three main groups of agents involved in the demand forecast process. The forecasters, the project promoters and the users. Study all the issues related to them would be a too ambitious (or more concretely impossible) task. We then focus on some particular issues related to the modelling of the actors' behaviour in the context of the demand forecast for toll roads.Regarding the forecaster behaviour, we present the results of the first large sample survey on forecasters' perceptions and opinions about forecasting demand for transport projects, based on an on-line survey. We first describe the main characteristics of forecasters. We then describe the last forecast forecasters prepared. We turn to the models forecasters apply, the errors they declare on past forecasts and the main sources of errors according to them. We then describe the forecast environment in terms of pressure forecasters receive. These unique results provide a picture of the world of forecasters and forecasts, allowing for a better understanding of them. We turn then to the study of the optimism and overconfidence in transport forecasts. Optimism and overconfidence in general are recognized human traits. We analyze the overoptimistic bias by comparing the distribution of stated errors with actual errors found in literature; we also compare the own skilful of subjects in doing forecasts with studies showing self-evaluations of a common skill - driving. We finally propose a regression of the competence, quality and errors on the main forecasters' and projects' specific variables.Results show that the distribution of errors transport forecasters state has a smaller average magnitude and a smaller variance than those found in literature. Comparing forecasters perception of their own competence with the results found in literature about drivers skill self-evaluation, however, we could not find a significant difference, meaning that the forecasters' overconfidence is in line with what could be viewed as a normal human overconfidence level.The pressure for results forecasters receive and the strategic manipulation they affirm exist merit a special attention. They imply that while forecasters' behavioural biases may exist and should be take in account when evaluation forecasts, the project promoter may influence forecasts by pressuring the forecasters to produce results which better fit his expectancies.We then study the bidders' strategic behaviour in auctions for road concessions. We address three questions in turn. First, we investigate the overall effects of the winner's curse on bidding behaviour in such auctions. Second, we examine the effects of the winner's curse on contract auctions with differing levels of common-value components. Third, we investigate how the winner's curse affects bidding behaviour in such auctions when we account for the possibility for bidders to renegotiate. Using a unique, self-constructed, dataset of 49 worldwide road concessions, we show that the winner's curse effect is particularly strong in toll road concession contract auctions. Thus, we show that bidders bid less aggressively in toll road concession auctions when they expect more competition. We observe that this winner's curse effect is even larger for projects where the common uncertainty is greater. Moreover, we show that the winner's curse effect is weaker when the likelihood of renegotiation is higher. While the traditional implication would be that more competition is not always desirable when the winner's curse is particularly strong, we show that, in toll road concession contract auctions, more competition may be always desirable. Modelling aggregated users' behaviour, we study the long term traffic maturity. We argue that traffic maturity results from decreasing marginal utility of transport. The elasticity of individual mobility with respect to the revenue decreases after a certain level of mobility is reached. In order to find evidences of decreasing elasticity we analyse a cross-section time-series sample including 40 French motorways' sections. This analysis shows that decreasing elasticity can be observed in the long term. We then propose a decreasing function for the traffic elasticity with respect to the economic growth, which depends on the traffic level on the road. Although “unconditional” decreasing elasticities were already proposed in the literature, this is the first work, as far as we know, putting this idea in evidence and giving it a functional form. This model provides better interpretation of the coupling between traffic and economic growth, and a better long-term forecast. From the disaggregate perspective, we study the main individual modal choice variable, the value of time. The value of travel time savings is a fundamental concept in transport economics and its size strongly affects the socio-economic evaluation of transport schemes. Financial assessment of tolled roads rely upon the value of time as the main (or even the unique) willingness to pay measure. Values of time estimates, which primarily represent behavioural values, as then increasingly been used as measures of out-of-pocket money. In this setting, one of the main issues regarding the value of time is its distribution over the population. We apply the Logit, the Mixed Logit and the Bayesian Mixed Logit models to estimate the value of time in freight transport in France. Estimations with mixed logit faced many difficulties, as expected. These difficulties could be avoided using the Bayesian procedures, providing also the opportunity of properly integrating a priori beliefs. Results show that 1) using a single constant value of time, representative of an average, can lead to demand overestimation, 2) the estimated average value of time of freight transport in France is about 45 Euro, depending on the load/empty and hire/own account variables, which implies that 3) the standard value recommended in France should be reviewed upwards.

Thesis (DPhil (Logistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / South Africa currently experiences the double jeopardy problem of catching up to global economic competitiveness whilst at the same time feeling the pressures of sustainability management spearheaded by a global agenda. Global sustainability is defined as growth that is shared without depleting natural resources or damaging the environment. Academic disciplines are challenged to make a contribution and economics as such should contribute by providing the lead and lag indicators for the planning and measurement of scarce resources usuage. This integrative view includes economic sub-disciplines, such as logistics. This integrative view is an acknowledged part of the economics discipline, except that the macro-economic context of some sub-disciplines, such as logistics, often receives less attention during the course of academic activities. The distribution of resources and outputs in the economy is a logistics controlled cross-cutting factor, but suffers from a lack of macro-economic perspective, and lead and lag orientated measurement. This state of the affairs is a historic backlog of logistics and its specific position within economics. During the primary economic era the world began to configure networks and markets, which became more pronounced and settled with the dawn and settling of the industrial era. Logistics then was a “given” and did not receive much thought even as industrial, market economies developed. Transport was regarded as an administered cost, i.e. inefficiencies in logistics systems were evenly distributed between competitors, not giving any specific entity an advantage. With the advent of global competition and the diminishing returns on other cost saving measures, companies began to collaborate and integrate logistics functions within value chains, but the administered part of transport costs failed to receive the attention it required. In this way, global competitors did begin to experience disadvantages on a national level as whole economies suffered from inefficiencies in logistics and specifically transport systems.

Thesis (MComm (Logistics))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / Although global changes like political security, depletion of natural resources, energy supply and global warming are affecting all continents; Africa struggle the most to cope with these changes. This is due to the many historical impediments that Africa still has to overcome. Examples of these impediments are the negative effects caused by civil wars, poverty, poor infrastructure and a lack of skills. Providing reliable, effective and efficient infrastructure underpins all attempts to facilitate trade, grow the economy and reduce poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). SSA transportation related infrastructure is limited and generally in a poor condition. This poor state of transport infrastructure impedes SSA's development. However, it is not only the state of the infrastructure that challenges Africa - complicated customs and administrative procedures and inefficiencies when goods are handled at terminals and transferred from one transport mode to another also impede its potential for economic growth. In spite of these limitations, the SSA economy has been growing. As many as 28 countries (out of 48) in SSA recorded improvements in growth in 2006 and 2007. This growth was underpinned by improvement in macro-economic management in many countries, and a strong global demand for key African export commodities (sustaining high export prices, especially for crude oil, metals and minerals). Greater flows of capital to Africa, debt relief and increasing trade with the developing Asia have also helped increase resources and lift growth across SSA. The strong economic growth in the region also reflects the institutional improvements, structural reforms, and more rigorous economic policies that have started to bear fruit in many countries.

The main aim of this thesis was to provide a comprehensive overview of the international transport of commodities with regard to its nature, time and cost efficiency. As a commodity suitable for examination were selected cut flowers. Based on the analysis of modes of transport was partial objective to propose directions for transport of cut flowers in the air and road transport with regard to the nature of commodities, time and cost efficiency. Another objective was to map the centers of production and consumption of cut flowers. Under this objective has been paid great attention to the center of international trade in cut flowers Netherlands and trading on local exchanges.

The relocation of logistic companies’ from the inner centres to the logistic platforms significantly affects both the supply chain management and the urban sustainability development. Recently the concept of city logistics and intermodality has received a significant attention from both academics and decision makers. City logistics play a pivotal role to ensure the liveability of urban areas but, in parallel, urban freight transport also has a significant effect on the quality of life in the urban settings. Optimization of urban freight transportation have an important input in the context of sustainability and liveability of cities and urban areas reducing traffic congestion, decreasing road accidents, alleviating CO2 emissions and noise impacts. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the relocation of a case logistics company from the city centre to a suburban area. To do this, a wide range of literature reviews pertaining the influence of peripheral logistics platform on the city sustainability were investigated. It seems that there are not well-defined models which can make a comprehensive and quantitative assessment in the context of sustainability for the relocation of business premises. Further investigation was done by conducting a case study on DHL, field observation of traffic flow. Based on all the collected information from the relevant sources, a mixed methods research was applied including a qualitative approach and a quantitative approach. A systematic approach was therefore developed in the context of sustainable development which can be used as an assessment tool for the major factors that enlighten the decision makers to consider the relocation of the logistics companies. A systematic approach was developed by this thesis which facilitates the assessment of key factors that impact the relocation decision in the context of all the three sustainable aspects: economic, social and environmental development. These impacts represent traffic congestion, time and distance of transportation, emission, cost optimization and transport mobility.

Encore méconnu il y a une trentaine d’années, le transport de marchandises en ville connaît aujourd’hui un essor scientifique incontestable, sous la tutelle d’instances nationales et internationales. Le sujet émerge aujourd’hui comme un enjeu d’autant plus fort que les modes de consommation et de gestion logistique restructurent les flux de biens et impactent la durabilité des villes. Pour autant, il semblerait que l’aménageur peine à se saisir à l’échelle locale de cette nouvelle thématique. Elément essentiel au fonctionnement du système urbain, le transport de marchandises reste ainsi un élément généralement ignoré par les décideurs publics, s’il n’est pas vécu comme une manifestation néfaste de l’activité urbaine.Dans cette thèse nous examinons, à l’échelle des collectivités territoriales l’intégration d’une thématique encore considérée comme faiblement structurante pour l’aménageur public. Si le transport de marchandises en ville a nécessité au début des années 1990 une conceptualisation différente du transport de fret interurbain, ce sujet exige également une adaptation spécifique aux enjeux que se pose l’aménageur. En ce sens nous, discutons les bases conceptuelles permettant de passer d’une approche technique et statistique du transport à la mobilité urbaine des marchandises pour englober les dynamiques du système urbain des « marchandises ». A travers neuf agglomérations françaises, nous confrontons les dispositifs stratégiques d’aménagement aux spécificités de la mobilité urbaine des marchandises et les conflits et incohérences qui en découlent. Nous développons par la suite le cas lyonnais pour illustrer les dynamiques et interactions territoriales complexes qui sous-tendent la mobilité urbaine des marchandises et l’évolution ainsi que les limites de la prise en compte de cette thématique. Enfin, pour discuter les effets de ces modes d’(in)action sur l’environnement urbain nous détaillons le processus d’intégration opérationnelle de la mobilité des marchandises dans deux opérations d’aménagement emblématiques de la ville de Lyon, le projet Lyon-Confluence et la rue Garibaldi.Malgré l’existence d’outils de mesure et d’action, nous montrons que la mobilité urbaine des marchandises est une thématique encore illégitime, en conflit avec le processus d’aménagement classique. Dans ce contexte les techniciens spécialistes du sujet se retrouvent marginalisés du processus d’aménagement mais servent toutefois d’alibi technique et politique pour afficher les capacités de réflexions de la collectivité sur une thématique complexe. / Still widely unexplored thirty years ago, urban freight transport is now undergoing an indisputable scientific development under the tutelage of national and international institutions. This subject now emerges as a substantial issue since consumers’ behaviours and supply chain management evolutions strongly impact cities’ sustainability. However, it seems that urban planners hardly take this new topic into account on a local level. Although it is an essential function of the urban system, freight transport remains widely unregarded by public decision makers, when it is not considered as a negative consequence of urban activity.This thesis focuses on the integration of a subject envisioned as poorly structuring for urban planners, studied here at the local authorities’ level. In the 1990s the necessity emerged for urban freight transport to be conceptualised in a way that differed from interurban freight transport. We now also consider that this subject needs to be specifically adapted to suit urban planners’ issues and we discuss the conceptual bases necessary to shift from a technical and statistical approach of transport to a view of urban freight mobility encompassing the dynamics of the “urban freight” system. Relying on the examples of nine French conurbations, we then confront urban planning policies to the specificities of urban freight mobility and describe the resulting conflicts and inconsistencies. We then develop the case of Lyons to illustrate the complex territorial dynamics and interactions underlying urban freight mobility and provide an analysis of how the actors’ awareness of this topic has evolved and to what extent it can be raised. Finally, in order to study the effects the (in)actions of city planners on urban environment we detail the process of integration of freight mobility through two urban development operations in Lyons, the “Lyon Confluence” project and the Garibaldi street project.Despite the existence of measuring and action tools, we show that urban freight mobility is still an illegitimate subject, at odds with mainstream urban planning. In this context, freight specialists in local authorities are largely kept away from the planning process, but are exposed and used as an alibi to demonstrate the capacity of public authorities to work on a complex subject.

O presente estudo agrega os dados geoespaciais livres, cedidos pela prefeitura de São Paulo, IBGE, CNAE, RAIS, entre outros e particulares, cedidos pela empresa Maplink, com os recursos dos Sistemas de Informações Geográficas - SIG, para planejamento de Transportes. A megacidade de São Paulo com mais de dez milhões de habitantes tem milhares de estabelecimentos comerciais para atender a demanda dessa população, que precisa ser abastecidos. Os veículos de carga que abastecem, além de afetarem o trânsito e mobilidade urbana, emitem poluentes. O objetivo é hierarquizar as áreas da megacidade de São Paulo (Brasil) com características potenciais para alta concentração de poluentes decorrentes da circulação dos veículos de carga para abastecer os estabelecimentos comerciais. A metodologia correlaciona espacialmente os dois conjuntos de dados (localização de estabelecimentos comerciais e a circulação de veículos de transporte de cargas) utilizando ferramentas de análises espaciais, baseada em Kernel Density Estimator - KDE, a análise de multicritério, como a Analytic Hierarchy Process - AHP para avaliar como estes duas variáveis estão relacionadas, e também a lógica Fuzzy para calcular esses dados. Os resultados obtidos demonstra que as avenidas e rodovias do município de São Paulo possuem alta concentração de poluentes, sendo utilizadas como rotas para os veículos de carga que tanto fazem do município sua origem e/ou destino, as regiões que possuem alta concentração de poluentes atmosféricos são: Cerqueira César, Parque Dom Pedro II e Ibirapuera, com destaque também na Marginal Tietê e Marginal Pinheiros, além da zona leste (Itaquera e Itaim Paulista). / This study adds free geospatial data, granted by the city of São Paulo, IBGE, CNAE, RAIS, among others and individuals assigned by Maplink company with the capabilities of Geographic Information Systems - GIS for Transportation planning. The megacity of São Paulo with more than ten million inhabitants has thousands of shops to meet the needs of this population, which must be supplied. The cargo vehicles that supply, as well as affect the traffic and urban mobility, emit pollutants. The goal is to prioritize areas of the megacity of São Paulo (Brazil) with potential characteristics for high concentration of pollutants resulting from the movement of cargo vehicles to supply shops. The methodology spatially correlate the two sets of data (location of commercial establishments and the movement of cargo transport vehicles) using tools of spatial analysis based on Kernel Density Estimator - KDE, the multi-criteria analysis, as the Analytic Hierarchy Process - AHP to evaluate how these two variables are related, and also fuzzy logic to calculate this data. The results show that the avenues and highways of São Paulo have a high concentration of pollutants, being used as routes for freight vehicles that both make the city their origin and / or destination, the regions with high concentration of air pollutants they are: Cerqueira Cesar, Parque Dom Pedro II and Ibirapuera, highlighting also the Marginal Tiete and Pinheiros, besides the east side (Itaquera and Itaim Paulista).