Models for joining consumer trips and goods movements at urban scale

This paper presents a modeling system developed to join consumer trips and goods movements at an urban and metropolitan scale. Given that in many cases urban transportation modeling treats passenger and freight transportation separately, this paper proposes a modeling system to simulate goods movements at an urban scale which combines urban personal travel and commodity flows (commodity flows are generated in order to support a given need) considering the interaction between consumers and other decision-makers involved (e.g. producers, carriers, retailers, etc.). The paper presents the results obtained in some Italian cities, where the first prototypical models were specified, calibrated and validated.