Estimation of network level benefits of reliability improvements in intermodal freight transport

Estimation of network level benefits of reliability improvements in intermodal freight transport

Zhang, Rong (Tongji University)
Jian, W. (TU Delft Transport and Planning; Tongji University)
Tavasszy, Lorant (TU Delft Transport and Planning; TU Delft Transport and Logistics)

2018

An important problem in the assessment of reliability benefits of transport projects is that link level improvements must be translated to network level, so that they can be economically valued based on users’ trips from origins to destinations. For intermodal transport, shipments follow a chain with more than one mode. Generally, this requires aggregation of travel time distributions that are not additive. We propose an approach that estimates the change in transport time reliability of an intermodal transport chain based on the changes for links of that chain. We demonstrate the framework of reliability assessment for a case study of network improvement for rail-truck intermodal transport in China. Also, we demonstrate the application in a cost-benefit analysis context with user valuations of transport reliabilities from the case at hand. The application leads to the result that projects for the renovation and expansion of the transshipment terminal perform better compared with project that improve rail haulage speed. Another finding is that the effect of reliability improvement projects can be super-additive at network level. In comparison with traditional methods, we conclude that the proposed method can better estimate transport time reliability benefits when the distribution of link travel times is highly skewed. Also, it opens new possibilities for further research for measuring correlated reliability measures within networks and for performing network resilience analysis.

Cost-benefit analysis
Error components model
Hasofer lind-rackwitz fiessler method
intermodal freight transport
Network design
Reliability assessment

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a34f65cb-80c3-4097-9e38-818fae3b37ac

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2018.09.002

2019-04-04

0739-8859

Research in Transportation Economics, 70, 1-8

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2018 Rong Zhang, W. Jian, Lorant Tavasszy