Developing integrated microsimulation models for intra-urban, inter-regional and cross-border freight transportation: an application to Ontario, Canada

与许多工业化国家一样，加拿大的货物运输在过去15年中大幅增长。全球化、对廉价商品的需求以及我们的市场对集装箱运输货物的依赖，推动了这一增长。评估货运在一个城市和区域之间的影响正成为决策者面临的紧迫问题之一。目前对货运与运输系统绩效之间关系的了解非常有限。缺乏这方面的知识可能会影响我们未来的生活质量。因此，有必要在这一领域进行积极的研究。在加拿大，安大略省是研究货运的沃土。安大略是加拿大的经济中心。因此，大量的货物流动和卡车运输发生在安大略不同的地方市场、港口、边境过境点和卡车通道内和之间。迄今为止，很少有人做了广泛的研究货运旅行在安大略。因此，本研究计划的具体目标如下：提高对安大略货物运输的认识;收集和分析以温莎为重点的企业级（微观）货物运输数据;解释托运人的旅行行为、使用的模式和影响绩效的因素（例如跨境延误）和货物流动;开发综合计算机程序（即模拟模型），为安大略的货物流动提出可持续战略。拟议的研究计划的新奇是双重的：（1）工作将依赖于微观层面的数据。加拿大在收集和分析这些详细数据方面做得很少。（2）研究计划旨在开发和应用一套综合货运模型。据我们所知，这是首次尝试将模拟城市内部、区域间和跨境货运过程的联合收割机模型结合起来。这种方法将提供更多的现实性，并提高模型的预期结果。总的来说，这项研究计划将推动行为，政策敏感和适合长期货运旅行规划的运营模式的发展。

Freight transportation in Canada, as is the case in many industrialized countries, has grown substantially over the past 15 years. Globalization, the demand for cheap commodities and the reliance of our markets on cargo shipped by containers have fuelled this growth. Assessing the impacts of freight movement in a city and between regions is becoming one of the pressing issues for decision makers. The current knowledge on the relationship between freight movement and the performance of transportation systems is very limited. The lack of knowledge in this area can impact our quality of life in the future. Therefore, there is a need for an active research program in this area. In the Canadian context, the Province of Ontario is fertile ground for research on freight movement. Ontario is the economic heartland of Canada. As such, a lot of goods movement and trucking takes place within and between Ontario's different local markets, ports, border crossing points and truckway corridors. To date, little has been done to extensively study freight travel in Ontario. Accordingly, the specific objectives of this research program are as follows: advance the current state of knowledge on freight movement in Ontario; collect and analyze firm-level (micro) data on freight transportation with emphasis on Windsor; Explain the travel behaviour of shippers, the modes used and the factors affecting the performance (e.g. cross-border delays) and movement of cargo; Develop integrated computer programs (i.e. simulation models) to propose sustainable strategies for goods movement in Ontario. The novelty of the proposed research program is twofold: (1) the work will rely on micro-level data. Little has been done to collect and analyze such detailed data in Canada, (2) the research program seeks to develop and apply a suite of integrated freight models. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to combine models that simulate intra-urban, inter-regional and cross-border freight transportation processes. This approach will provide more realism and enhance the expected outcomes of the models. Overall, this research program will push forward the development of operational models that are behavioural, policy sensitive and suitable for long-term freight travel planning.