Optimal operation strategy in the collaborative urban freight transport system with concept of capacity allocation

Abstract

Worldwide, urban freight transport demand has rapidly expanded. Collaborative freight transport service, which integrates existing public transport system into the freight transport service, would be a promising solution to solve such post-pandemic urban freight transport problem. While most of the previous research works on this topic considered the operation of the public transport service and freight delivery service separately, this paper would focus on how to determine coordinated operational strategies of the participating public transport and freight transport services in a cooperative regime. Specifically, the definition of the capacity allocation event is proposed to encourage more seamless freight movements at transfer hubs within the given limited temporal restrictions while considering both the travel delay for public transport passengers and all incurred operational costs for offering the collaborative freight transport service. To this end, we propose a multi-objective mathematical model to describe the operation design of the collaborative freight transport service, aiming to maximize the synchronized freight movement at transfer hub and minimize the incurred passenger travel delay and operational costs. A Multi-objective Bernstein Basis Differential Evolution (MOBDE) solution method, requiring no pre-determined control parameters, is employed to find the optimal solution efficiently. Finally, an illustrative example is presented to demonstrate the validity of the model formulation and efficiency of the solution method for the operation design of collaborative freight transport services.