A behavioral modelling in micro-simulation for urban freight transportation

This paper proposes and applies a micro-simulation model for the modeling of urban freight transportation that describes freight transportation at the behavioral level. The proposed model is a modification of the traditional four-step approach considering the behavior of each freight decision maker individually. The model structure consists of three stages: commodity production and consumption, commodity distribution, and conversion of commodity flow to vehicle movement. The proposed model has been applied to estimate truck movement in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area for model validation. This paper discusses the issues involved in model development and validation including conceptual framework, mathematical formulation, and estimated results.