Felipe Aros-Vera

p-Hub approach for the optimal park-and-ride facility location problem

Park and Ride facilities (P&R) are car parks at which users can transfer to public transportation to reach their final destination. We propose a mixed linear programming formulation to determine the location of a fixed number of P&R facilities so that their usage is maximized. The facilities are modeled as hubs. Commuters can use one of the P&R facilities or choose to travel by car to their destinations, and their behavior follows a logit model. We apply a p-hub approach considering that users incur in a known generalized cost of using each P&R facility as input for the logit model. For small instances of the problem, we propose a novel linearization of the logit model, which allows transforming the binary nonlinear programming problem into a mixed linear programming formulation. A modification of the Heuristic Concentration Integer (HCI) procedure is applied to solve larger instances of the problem. Numerical experiments are performed, including a case in Queens, NY. Further research is proposed.

Park-and-Ride Facilities in New York City: Economic Analyses of Alternative Locations

A procedure is developed to assess the economic feasibility of park-and-ride facilities. Relevant literature is discussed, and a mathematical formulation that can be integrated with a regional planning model is produced and applied to the selection of park-and-ride facilities in New York City. The evaluation procedure is divided into two main stages: candidate selection and candidate evaluation. The candidates are selected according to a set of criteria that includes demand considerations, transit connectivity and design, community integration, and economic viability. Economic assessment of the candidates considers the generalized cost of travel and entails the use of a binary logit model and the computation of four performance measures: expected demand, market share, weighted average savings, and present value of benefits.

Self-supported freight demand management: pricing and incentives

The paper designs and assesses the effectiveness of a self-supported freight demand management system that uses a small toll surcharge to generate an incentive budget that, in turn, is used to induce receivers of goods in congested urban areas to accept unassisted off-hour deliveries (OHD). To this effect, the authors use a behavioral micro-simulation that incorporates the chief principles that govern the joint decision of carriers and receivers about delivery times, including an ordinal discrete choice model to represent the receivers’ decisions concerning OHD in response to an incentive; and a cost function to estimate the carriers’ decisions. The paper analyzes the effectiveness of different combinations of toll surcharges (to only freight vehicles, or to all vehicles traveling in the regular hours) and incentives to receivers. The paper ends with a summary of the key findings and policy implications.

The New York City Off-Hour Delivery Program: A Business and Community-Friendly Sustainability Program

The New York City Off-Hour Delivery (NYC OHD) program is the work of a private-public-academic partnership—a collaborative effort of leading private-sector groups and companies, public-sector agencies led by the New York City Department of Transportation, and research partners led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The efforts of this partnership have induced more than 400 commercial establishments in NYC to accept OHD without supervision. The economic benefits are considerable: the carriers have reduced operational costs and parking fines by 45 percent; the receivers enjoy more reliable deliveries, enabling them to reduce inventory levels; the truck drivers have less stress, shorter work hours, and easier deliveries and parking; the delivery trucks produce 55–67 percent less emissions than they would during regular-hour deliveries, for a net reduction of 2.5 million tons of CO2 per year; and citizens’ quality of life increases as a result of reduced conflicts between delivery trucks, cars, bicycles, an...

Disaster Response Logistics: Chief Findings of Fieldwork Research

This chapter discuses Disaster Response Logistics in connection with the Emergency Functions conducted by relief agencies, and identifies under-studied areas where logistic research could enhance operational effectiveness. The chapter establishes the socio-technical nature of Disaster Response Logistics, and the implications for disaster mitigation, preparation, and response. It relays the chief findings of the fieldwork research conducted by the authors, which support the development of policies to enhance advance preparation and coordination of disaster response activities.

Remote sensing-based detection and quantification of roadway debris following natural disasters

Rapid knowledge of road network conditions is vital to formulate an efficient emergency response plan following any major disaster. Fallen buildings, immobile vehicles, and other forms of debris often render roads impassable to responders. The status of roadways is generally determined through time and resource heavy methods, such as field surveys and manual interpretation of remotely sensed imagery. Airborne lidar systems provide an alternative, cost-e↵ective option for performing network assessments. The 3D data can be collected quickly over a wide area and provide valuable insight about the geometry and structure of the scene. This paper presents a method for automatically detecting and characterizing debris in roadways using airborne lidar data. Points falling within the road extent are extracted from the point cloud and clustered into individual objects using region growing. Objects are classified as debris or non-debris using surface properties and contextual cues. Debris piles are reconstructed as surfaces using alpha shapes, from which an estimate of debris volume can be computed. Results using real lidar data collected after a natural disaster are presented. Initial results indicate that accurate debris maps can be automatically generated using the proposed method. These debris maps would be an invaluable asset to disaster management and emergency response teams attempting to reach survivors despite a crippled transportation network.

Geographically Focused Incentives to Foster Off-Hour Deliveries: Theory and Performance

This study evaluated geographically focused incentives to receivers for their commitment to accept off-hour deliveries (OHD). A behavioral microsimulation was used to describe the joint decision of carriers and receivers toward OHD. The study assessed the performance of incentive structures by analyzing the percentage of trucks and deliveries that would switch to OHD and the budget required for the implementation of OHD. The results were analyzed in conjunction with previous theoretical research on the benefits of providing incentives by geographic location. Policy recommendations shed light on the implementation of OHD programs.