Freight group behavior under freight traffic restriction policy. The case of Beijing city distribution
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-10-2016-0448 |
| Date | 04 December 2017 |
| Published date | 04 December 2017 |
| Pages | 2287-2304 |
| Author | Haoxiong Yang,Lijun Sun,Shulin Lan,Chen Yang |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
Freight group behavior under
freight traffic restriction policy
The case of Beijing city distribution
Haoxiong Yang and Lijun Sun
Business School Beijing, Beijing Technology and Business University,
Beijing, China, and
Shulin Lan and Chen Yang
Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering,
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Abstract
Purpose –Many cities implement freight traffic restriction policy (FTRP) intending to reduce traffic
congestion and air pollution. At the same time, city distribution had some negative effects. The purpose of
this paper is therefore to study the freight group behavior under FTRP, and to provide some
recommendations for the government.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper establishes a city distribution system model built by a
simulation method of Agent, which includes the complex adaptability of freight individual, event of
restriction policy, the influence factor of freight group behavior and its changes from the perspective
of restriction policy. The rules of microscopic freight group behavior to macroscopic freight group behavior,
the effects on freight group behavior exerted by restriction policy and the dynamic mechanism of freight
group behavior are all studied. The model is also simulated with the traffic data of Beijing in China.
Findings –Theoretical results ensure that restriction of the passport is not the sole reason that may produce
illegal trucks, and other measures need to be taken to solve the traffic problems. And in the long run,
increasing fines has a greater effect than strengthening supervision frequency on illegal trucks reduction.
Originality/value –Fromcity distributionperspective, thispaper studied freightgroup behavior underFTRP.
This paperalso applied the Agentmodeling method to builda model of urban distribution systemin the FTRP.
Keywords Agent, City distribution, Freight group behaviour, Freight traffic restriction policy,
Traffic planning
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The increase of environmental pollution and the traffic congestion brought by freight
transport has impacted city development. District administrators set some logistics
measures, in order to reduce the negative effects of freight transport within their cities
(Lindholm and Behrends, 2012; Russo and Comi, 2010).
In order to limit freight transport’s access to urban area, New York sets a special truck
route. Toreduce air pollution,Europe controls city’s car emissions, increase congestion charge,
restrict older vehicles from entering low emission zones (Wolff and Perry, 2010b). London bans
heavy goods vehicles at night and weekend traffic, in order to reduce noise produced by the
truck (Stuster, 1999). Copenhagen, Denmark, implementurban goods transportregulations by
zoningrestrictions. Tokyosolves urban congestion problemsthat may arisein the van through
the management, for example, when the roadside unloading cargo prone to clogging, the
government constructs proper parking facilities for lorry loading an d unloading cargo.
The effectof the implementationof freight trafficrestriction policy( FTRP)has been widely
studied. The research on implementation effects of freight traffic policy is still at the Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 117 No. 10, 2017
pp. 2287-2304
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-10-2016-0448
Received 26 October 2016
Revised 8 February 2017
Accepted 26 March 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
The authors wish to extend gratitude to National Funds of Social Science fund (71673016) for
supporting this research.
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Freight group
behavior under
FTRP
exploratory stage, mainly focusing on the qualitative analysis of th e effects of policies types.
And the agent-based traffic simulation can be studied both macroscopically and
microscopically. However, they did not use the agent technology to study on the
implementation effects of freight traffic policy. This paper added the content and makes up
insufficient of previous research.
The main purpose of this paper is to run the model of city distribution system with
various group behaviors which operate under the implementation of FTRP through an
Agent-based simulation approach. The specific contribution of this research is on three
aspects: it offers analytical approximations and empirical data to study and describe the
impact of implementation of FTRP, it discusses about the costs from a traveler’s perspective
and it uses a novel and intuitive method to establish the city distribution system model.
This paper also analyzes the empirical or real-world desegregated tour data to validate the
analytical insights of the model.
This paper is organized as follows. We startedbyreviewthedetailedproblems
and solutions. The following section introduces the city distribution system model built
by a simulation method of Agent. Then we analyze the implementation effects of
freight traffic policy. Based on these results, we present policy recommendations which in
order to guide the freight group behaviors, and enable the city distribution system in a
good operation.
2. Literature review
The problem of city freight issues has been widely studied in the literature which can be
broadly divided into three categories: freight traffic impact analysis, study on the effect of
FTRP and with Agent to solve city traffic problems.
2.1 Freight traffic impact analysis
It is widely accepted that freight transport affects city development. Crowley et al. (1975)
puts forward that freight transport is the main reason causing traffic congestion. When the
buses and trucks run collision, it is easy to lead to injuries, because the buses are at a
disadvantage compared with trucks’huge size (Forkenbrock and March, 2005). Based on
previous studies, Forkenbrock and Hanley (2010) present that large size trucks, with safety
and efficiency difficult to be controlled, are prone to traffic accidents.
Dablanc and Rakotonarivo (2010) and Boogaard et al. (2012) present the results of
research on city logistic transport of Paris and Europe, and it shows that CO
2
emissions
coming into the city have a tight relationship with the urban freight transport of freight.
Zanni and Bristow (2010) and Figliozzi (2011) discuss that congested urban distribution
network has influenced the carbon dioxide emissions level.
2.2 The effect of FTRP
The pros and cons of implementation of FTRP have been widely discussed. When
implementing the FTRP within the city, it greatly contributes to pollution reduction, noise,
traffic congestion, logistics costs and security issues in the city center (Silas et al., 2012;
Muñuzuri et al., 2012; de Oliveira et al., 2014; Browne et al., 2010). Browne et al. (2010) uses
the game, analyzes the FRTP to off-peak hours-targeting delivery and points out that the
policy is good for both receivers and carriers of goods in urban area. Through empirical case
study, Quak and de Koster (2009) get the results that time-access regulations and vehicle
restrictions are good for the development of Western Europe. With the same method,
McKinnon (1998) concludes that urban transshipment is good for the progress of Mexico.
Stephens et al. (1993) point out that the planning of transportation facilities for the National
Capital Region can improve the efficiency of goods transport.
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IMDS
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