TITLE:
Accessibility Measures in Modal Choice Models: A Proof of Concept Applied to Freight Transport
AUTHORS:
Bart Jourquin
KEYWORDS:
Freight Transport Model, Modal Choice, Accessibility, Assignment
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.13 No.1,
January
19,
2023
ABSTRACT: Modal choice models applied to interregional or international freight
transportation network models are often based on rather coarse
origin-destination matrices, containing annual transported tonnages between
(sub)regions, for instance. Generally, only
basic (sometimes constructed) independent variables (transportation
costs or transit times) are used because other variables such as shipment
sizes, service frequencies, etc. are not available. Using
origin-destination matrices and an assignment model, it is also possible to
compute spatial accessibility measures that can further be used as additional
explanatory variables. Indeed, several published studies have identified
network accessibility as an important element in the mode-choice decision. This
paper also shows that the inclusion of an accessibility measure in the utility
functions of a logit model substantially improves the performance of a
transportation network model, both in the modal choice and the assignment
levels of the classical four-step model. Consequently, the assignment of the
estimated modal demands results in more accurate estimated traffic on the
networks. The model presented in this paper is to be considered as a proof of
concept because its workflow should further be streamlined to make it easily
useable by modelers.