Design, management and evaluation of inter-cities transportation logistics

城市内货运面临的挑战不同于城市间货运面临的挑战。环境保护、道路拥堵、安全和及时交货是城市间交通的基本问题。对于城际交通，经济性和资源可用性是规划过程中的主要问题。另一个重要的区别是，LTL（小于卡车装载）在城市内运输中占主导地位，而单目的地运营在城市间运营中更为常见。为了应对城市内部的交通问题，出现了一个新的交通规划领域，称为城市物流。在人口密度高的国家，如日本，城市内运输可能占交通活动的67%，而在加拿大等国家，城市间运输在成本和里程方面更为重要。本研究的目标是：(1)强调与城市物流相比，城际货运物流面临的重要问题；(2)回顾城际货运规划的文献；(3)发展适合城际运输物流设计、规划和运营的概念、知识和技术。这个研究领域将被称为城际物流。本研究项目分析的主要举措是：(1)共享和公共物流终端网络，(2)协同货运政策，以及(3)货运联盟内的公共信息系统和信息共享。目的是开发设计公共或共享物流终端网络的方法，确定如何分担这些终端的成本和收入，以及如何安排终端和终端间的运营。

Challenges facing freight transportation within urban areas are different from those facing inter-city transportation. Environment conservation, roads congestion, security and just in time deliveries are essential issues for intra-city transportation. For inter-city transportation, economical and resource availability issues are dominating in the planning process. Another important difference is that LTL (less than truck loads) dominate in intra-city transportation while single-destination operations are more common in inter-city operations. In response to intra-city transportation issues, a new area of transportation planning, called city logistics, emerged. In countries of high population density, like Japan, intra-city transportation may represent up to 67% of transportation activities while in countries like Canada, inter-city transportation is more important in terms of cost and mileage. The goals of this research project are: (1) to underline important issues facing inter-city freight transportation logistics in comparison to city logistics, (2) to review the literature on inter-city freight transportation planning, and (3) to develop concepts, knowledge and techniques appropriate for designing, planning and operating inter-city transportation logistics. This research area will be called inter-city logistics. The main initiatives to analyse in this research project are: (1) shared and public logistics terminal networks, (2) collaborative freight transportation policies, and (3) common information systems and information sharing within a freight transportation alliance. The aim is to develop methods to design networks of public or shared logistic terminals, to determine how to share costs and revenues of such terminals and how to schedule terminal and inter-terminal operations.