Urban Freight Transport Demand Modelling: a State of the Art

The paper provides a review of freight transport demand models for applications in urban and metropolitan areas. The perspective adopted is the short-term one of public decision-makers involved in transport planning and traffic management. The paper recalls the general methodology to be used for assessing the city logistics scenario and the features of models in relation to the planning horizons: strategic, tactical and operative. The focus is on the transport demand models able to support the assessment of short-term policies/measures. Several models and methods have been proposed. They usually refer to the multi-stage modelling approach and can be classified in terms of reference unit: truck/vehicle, commodity/quantity, delivery and mixed. The paper offers an analysis of pros and cons of each above classes of models. The research prospects are also identified.