Ali Gul Qureshi

Evaluation of Distance-Based and Cordon-Based Urban Freight Road Pricing in E-Commerce Environment with Multiagent Model

E-commerce is gradually changing the way shoppers acquire goods and services. Shoppers seek ways to purchase goods easily through the Internet, and shippers or producers offer cheap ways to deliver goods to their customers through the services of carriers for home delivery. A theoretical model was established to evaluate city logistics schemes for multiple stakeholders before implementation. Policy measures to manage truck operations in the city and keep pollution levels at a minimum were evaluated. Cordon-based freight road pricing was found to provide better pollution reduction compared with distance-based pricing, but cordon-based pricing had less impact on areas outside a city. The problem was solved with a modeling approach for multiagent systems that used a vehicle routing problem with time windows, freight electronic marketplaces, and Q-learning.

Multi-agent systems modelling approach to evaluate urban motorways for city logistics

Government road authorities are constantly faced with the challenges of urbanization and traffic congestion requiring them to make good decisions for infrastructure developments. Several developed and developing countries have focused their concerns on building motorways for private and public transports for intercity connectivity and economic growth in the past. However, very few evaluation models were concerned about urban motorways for the benefit of urban freight transport. There may not even be an evaluation model for urban motorways development, which has considered the routing behaviour of truck movements in urban areas, especially if the main purpose for the urban motorway is for improving city logistics. Faced with the problems and concerns of the road authorities in Japan regarding capacity increase measures or other freight management schemes, this paper is an initial step to explore and provide the methodology to support the road authorities in their decision for urban motorway alternatives.

An Analysis of Exact VRPTW Solutions on ITS Data-based Logistics Instances

This paper describes an exact solution approach for the Vehicle Routing and scheduling Problem with Soft Time Windows (VRPSTW), and presents its application on a realistic logistics instance based on the VICS (Vehicle Information and Communication System) data, an ITS application in Japan. Exact solutions of VRPSTW have been compared with those of the Vehicle Routing and scheduling with Hard Time Windows (VRPHTW). Detailed analysis of environmental issues and idling time along with the traditional comparison of cost and number of vehicles, shows that the exact VRPSTW solutions are not only cost efficient but helpful in reducing congestion, which implies these are more environmentally sustainable.

Application of exact route optimization for the evaluation of a city logistics truck ban scheme

This paper presents an application of the exact solution approach for the Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows based on the column generation scheme developed earlier by the authors, for evaluating a truck ban scheme from the environmental improvement aspect on a realistic logistics instance based on the Vehicle Information and Communication System data, which is an Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) application in Japan. Two different types of truck ban schemes are evaluated, one which denies truck entry on congested links (with average speeds lower than a threshold) and the other with and without the availability of the ITS-based data to freight firms. It was found that the Uniform truck ban on low travel speed links can result in a win-win situation, improving the environmental conditions as well as reducing the operation cost for freight carriers in a scenario where freight carriers do not have access to ITS-based travel time information. While the use of an exact optimization method and with ITS-based historical traffic information still helps in reducing environmental impacts, freight companies are slightly worst-off as far as the operation cost is concerned.

Risk of Traffic Incident Delay in Routing and Scheduling of Hazardous Materials

Unlike normal traffic incidents, incidents involving hazardous material are associated with significant traffic delays. The model of the hazardous material routing and scheduling problem presented in this paper considers such potential effect of a hazardous material incident, in addition to the traditionally considered risk to exposed population. Probable loss due to congestion created by the probable incident is used as its measure. The objective is to minimize sum of the population-based and congestion-based risk cost. The model was used to explore routing and scheduling in an ITS data-based hazardous material logistics instance derived from the road network of Osaka City, Japan. Comparison of the results showed that the model provides a better alternative to the conventional population-based model as it gives balanced optimal solution avoiding paths that causes large increase of the congestion-based cost.