Ackchai Sirikijpanichkul

Optimizing the Location of Intermodal Freight Hubs: An Overview of Agent Based Modelling Approach

This paper aims at developing an integral model for the evaluation of road-rail intermodal freight hub location decisions. The model comprises four dominant agents, namely, hub owners or operators; transport network infrastructure providers; hub users; and communities. An agent based modelling approach is introduced to allow such negotiation to happen to achieve a global objective. The paper outlines the methodology to be used. It also presents an initial location selection process, a testing with individual objective functions, and a design for an agent based model using a case study of intermodal freight hub location decisions in South East Queensland of Australia.

Planning the Location of Intermodal Freight Hubs: an Agent Based Approach

Intermodal freight transportation is defined as a system that carries freight from origin to destination by using two or more transportation modes. In this system, hubs are one of the key elements that function as transferring points of freight between different modes. The location of hubs is one of the most crucial success factors in intermodal freight transportation and needs to be considered very carefully as it has direct and indirect impacts on different stakeholders including investors, policy makers, infrastructure providers, hub operators, hub users, and the community. There have been several attempts to evaluate intermodal freight hub location decisions by using conventional multi-objective evaluation models. Only a few studies take communitys benefits into account next to the costs and it is difficult to assess the relationship between system level performance and the prefered solution for individual actors. This paper aims at developing an integral model for the evaluation of road-rail intermodal freight hub location decisions. The model comprises five dominant types of agents namely, hub operators, terminal operators, infrastructure providers, hub users, and communities. An agent based modeling approach is introduced to allow negotiation to happen in order to achieve a global objective. The paper outlines the methodology to be used. It presents a conceptual design and an illustrative case study for an agent based model for the decision making process for planning the location of intermodal freight hubs.

Modeling Intermodal Freight Hub Location Decisions

The paper presents an evaluation model for the location decisions of road-rail intermodal freight hub. The problem of optimizing individual freight actors benefits is addressed in the model which comprises four different modules. Each of the modules represents a hub user, a hub owner or operator, a transport network infrastructure provider and the affected local community. The model is aimed at providing comprehensive operational, economic and environmental criteria for location evaluation decisions pertinent to every stakeholder involved.

Modelling Impacts of Urban Freight Terminal Location Decisions

This paper presents the results of research into the evaluation of alternative scenarios for freight terminal location in an urban area in Australia. The research combines the use of a strategic transport model for overall freight demand forecasting, with cost assessment of the specific impacts of locating future terminals in selected areas. Outputs of the model were used to evaluate the impacts of urban freight terminal location decisions on all traffic in the road network. The work includes freight trip generation, using strategic transport modelling software (VISUM) to forecast future patterns of urban freight flows, calibration of the model, and option testing using a case-study in South East Queensland to predict the transport cost impacts of several locations for intermodal terminals.