Estimation of freight transportation

Abstract

Transportation is an important human activity which has many economic, social and other effects. In particular, freight transportation is economically very important for any country, and includes transporting a wide variety of goods ranging from raw materials to finished goods. These freights must be transported to the market efficiently and safely at reasonable cost. In addition, the external effects caused by freight transportation must be at an environmentally and socially acceptable level. To achieve these goals, an effective freight transportation planning model is required for forecasting the future trends of freight transportation. This paper presents a framework which includes empirical modelling methods to estimate the freight transportation between defined zones. The gravity method was used to estimate origin and destination matrices by using observed link flows, gross domestic product by provinces and interzonal distances. The coefficients of the gravity method were estimated by using advanced statistical techniques and regression analyses. The final freight transportation matrix was calibrated with the link flows data by using iterative techniques. The suggested framework was successfully applied to a data set provided by the Turkish General Directorate of Highways.