Strategic Planning of National/Regional Freight Transportation

Systems : An Analysis

TG Crainic, J Damay, M Gendreau, R Namboothiri

June 15, 2009

Talk Outline

Problem Motivation Multi-product Multi-modal Freight Transportation Systems Strategic National Planning Research Questions

Models & Methodologies Modeling & Formulation Solution Framework Algorithms & Techniques

Instances & Computational Experiments Conclusions & Future Research

Multi-product Multi-modal Transportation Systems

Provides efficient, smooth, and timely movement of people, goods and information

Supports almost all social or economic activities Vital for society’s existence

System Stakeholders

Shippers Require transportation services to move various commodities in

order to meet consumer demands Chooses services based on cost and quality of service

Carriers Meet demand for transportation by supplying infrastructure and

services Offers services at various levels of service and price.

Governments Supply infrastructure – roads, terminals, ports, rail facilities Regulate and tax the industry

Interaction results in the flow of commodities

Multi-product Multi-modal Transportation Systems

Complex network Strong feedback loops exist among various stakeholders

Multi-product Multi-modal Freight Transportation Systems

System Characteristics Each stakeholder makes individual decisions to optimize

their objective and adjusts operations accordingly Individual user decisions impact the entire system,

modifying the behavior of other users Observed performance is an equilibrium between the

decisions of many participants

Performance Measures System performance measures – capacity of

infrastructure and services User performance measures - efficiency measures for

users

Strategic National Planning

• Analysis and planning of multimodal, multiproduct transportation systems

• Traffic assignment of demand flows for different commodities from specific origins to specific destinations on an inter/multi-modal network

• Integrated, multimodal view of transportation• Understand and predict the behavior of the system and its

components, considering various social, economic, and technological trends and forecasts

• Plan the sustainable development of an efficient system by measuring the impact of contemplated investments or policies on the system and its users

National Planning Models

Comprehensive representation of a multimodal transportation system, its main components and their interactions

Achieve a sufficiently good simulation of the global behavior of the system to offer a realistic representation of the current situation

Broad focus – strategic planning issues at the international, national and regional levels

Adequate analysis tool for planned or forecast scenarios and policies

Research Questions

Evolution of a given transportation system and its response to various modifications in its environment Transportation infrastructure

New modal or intermodal facilities Expansion /Removal(rail lines) of existing ones

Socio-Economic characteristics of the region Population distribution Patterns and volumes of production, consumption and trade

Policies and legislation Environment-related taxation Security related regulation

Technology Hardware – New/Enhanced vehicular and infrastructure technologies Software – Intelligent Transportation Systems

Research Questions

• How do the various non-linear methodologies available in the literature compare for solving this complex problem?

• Can we gain a better understanding of the interactions between the data collection, the data aggregation, the modeling of the different components and their interactions, and the performance measures?

• Can we develop state of the art, new generation models for this challenging problem?

Modeling Methodologies

• Requirements• Efficiently and correctly identify and represent the

fundamental components of the system - demand, supply, performance measures and decision criteria, and their interactions.

• Powerful, flexible and adaptable to the scope of studies encompassing broad range of geographical dimensions

• Analyze the impact of issues identified now, as well as planned or forecast scenarios and policies

• Build new evaluation procedures as the needs arise• Traffic Assignment Models

• Already been presented and transferred into practice for freight transportation systems

• Derived from the nonlinear programming literature• From studies related to passenger transportation• Devised or revisited by us

Model Components

Supply modeling Represent transportation modes, infrastructure, carriers, services

intermodal facilities, capacities and congestion

Demand modeling Identify producers, shippers and intermediaries, and represent

production, consumption and regional distribution volumes, as well as mode choice

Assignment Multi-commodity flows(demand model) to the multimodal

network(supply model)

Data manipulation tools Analysis, fusion, validation and updating of information Result analysis capabilities

Four-step planning method

Mathematical Model

• Demand• O-D demand matrix for each product p Є P• Demand quantity and mode choice is exogenous

• Supply Network• N nodes; M modes; T transfers; A links

• Variables

Path Flow Formulation

More intuitive and provide more comprehensive results in comparison with the link formulations

Effective use of improved computing capabilities and implementation tools

User Optimum vs. System Optimum

Wardrop’s first principle (User Optimum) “The journey times on all the routes actually used are equal, and less

than those which would be experienced by a single flow unit on any unused route”

Objective function

Wardrop’s second principle (System Optimum) “At equilibrium the average journey time is minimum”

Objective function

Wardrop’s first principle reformulated with marginal costs

Solution Framework

Local Improvement Algorithms

Generate a succession of feasible solutions , starting from an initial solution

Involves shortest path calculations Algorithms

Frank-Wolfe Path Equilibration Schemes

Convex Simplex Method Reduced Gradient Method Projected Gradient Method

Multimodal Shortest Path Search

Decomposition Techniques

Build disjoint and complementary sets of O-D pairs Whole

All O-D pairs of current product p

Unitary Decomposition Each O-D pair (Singleton sets) sequentially

Decomposition by class Sort O-D pairs into several classes based on O-D demand, and

process the classes in a pre-defined sequence

Generic Algorithm

Instance Generation

Challenge : Large amounts of data required Input-output structure of the economy and reliable data on

shipments of all products in order to build demand models Synthetic realities for case studies of these systems Scenarios of different sizes

Nodes/Zones Typically disaggregated instance - > 1000 zones Completely aggregated instance - < 50 zones

Modes LTL carriers, TL carriers, barges, container ships, diesel trains

Products P = 1 - Passenger transportation system

Density of Network Density of Demand

Instance Generation

Computational Experiments

Treat the various instances generated with Specific Decomposition Specific Local Improvement Algorithm User behavior assumptions

Output parameters Number of times equilibrium has been reached CPU times required Number of major cycles Number of shortest path searches Number of line search iterations Costs

After Initialization After one major cycle At the end of execution

Conclusions & Future Research

Strategic National Planning of Freight Transportation Systems Comprehensive and realistic models representing current

state of the system Exhaustive evaluation platform encompassing various

solution methodologies

Examining impact of policy-level and technological

advancement initiatives Environment related laws Intelligent Transportation Systems

Questions