Modeling interactions of cars and freight vehicles in urban areas for speed and travel time prediction

Abstract

The prediction of journey speeds is important for decision making - not only for travelers, but also for businesses such as urban freight companies. Journey speed is total travel distance divided by total travel time, including all delays and additional stopping times. So far, methodologies to model these interactions between cars and urban freight vehicles at an aggregated level have not yet received much attention, although the demand for urban freight is growing. However, these methodologies are required to identify solutions for optimal management and regulation of urban freight. This paper proposes a novel approach to model the interactions between cars and urban freight vehicles for journey speed prediction in urban areas based on the multi-modal macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD). To ensure transferability to many applications, we formulate the model in a generic way. We apply the proposed model to an synthetic network with parameters oriented towards European cities to illustrate the model’s applicability and discuss trade-offs in regulation of urban freight. As data related to (urban) freight movements (e.g., route planning and load factors) are currently often treated as private resources by involved freight companies, our generic model also provides a foundation to integrate actual freight data as soon as they are available for cities as a consequence from the ongoing, continuous digital transformation. Thus, the new approach not only helps cities on deriving urban freight strategies to optimize the overall traffic in the network, but also helps businesses to make better decisions.