Toshinori Nemoto

Area-wide inter-carrier consolidation of freight in urban areas

Frequent and small-sized shipments of goods increases road freight traffic in terms of vehicle·km, resulting in environmental problems. In order to relieve these problems, area-wide inter-carrier consolidation of freight has been proposed, but there are few successful cases of its introduction. One exception is Tenjin, a central business district in Fukuoka, Japan. This paper clarifies the social effects of the consolidation system and describes the necessary conditions to introduce and maintain it in urban areas. This can be accomplished by building mathematical models based upon the Tenjin example and making a sensitivity analysis under different conditions and policy alternatives.

THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY ON ROAD FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION

Surveying the recent trend toward e-commerce and computerization in the trucking industry, this paper establishes a framework for analyzing the impact of information and communication technology on road freight transportation in terms of commerce, logistics and fleet management, and proposes hypothetical mechanisms of influence. The authors note that the rapid growth of e-commerce and freight fleet management systems make it difficult to arrive at firm, statistics-based conclusions about their impact on road freight transportation, but suggest that more sophisticated government management of transportation demand as well as freight fleet management systems could cancel out the negative impact of e-commerce on road transportation.

Procurement Logistics of Japanese Auto Manufacturers in Inland China - Intermodal Transport Utilizing the Yangtze River -*

Abstract The procurement of automotive parts efficiently from remote suppliers under poor logistics infrastructure conditions has become a critical issue for car manufacturers located in inland China. This study explores how Japanese auto manufactures located in Sichuan, China have established its automotive parts procurement network and improve its distribution system to cope with severe logistics infrastructure conditions in the area. An analysis on the viability of ship transport in the Yangtze River as a means for long-distance transportation was also performed.

Effect of Off-peak Hour Toll Reduction on Toll Roads

A transport economic model was developed to evaluate changes in total travel costs on congested toll roads by dispersing peak-hour traffic to the pre-peak hours or post-peak hours with a toll discount. To empirically analyze the effectiveness of the early-morning and daytime toll discount, early departure cost and late arrival cost were estimated and traffic data of Metropolitan Expressway Route 3 was assigned. The result shows that an early-morning toll discount, shifting the peak-hour traffic to the pre-peak hours, produces a long-lasting effect of congestion mitigation starting from the peak-hours. It is empirically presented that an early-morning toll discount is effective in cutting travel costs.