Transforming urban freight transportation: Service network design for synergy with passenger transportation in transit systems

Abstract

<p>The increasing popularity of online shopping and the resulting surge in parcel volumes are exerting significant pressure on urban logistics systems. To address this challenge, a novel solution known as “urban co-modality” has emerged, which promotes collaborative transportation between freight and passengers. This study examines the service network design for urban co-modality, which synergizes passenger and freight transportation by leveraging the spare capacity of urban bus systems. In contrast to traditional freight transportation systems, co-modal systems enable freight demands to be fulfilled through a combination of trucking and bus transportation, in addition to trucking alone. Designated bus stops and terminals can serve as freight transfer points. Using a time–space network as the modeling framework, we propose an arc-based formulation that simultaneously addresses truck fleet sizing, routing, and scheduling, as well as freight allocation, with the objective of minimizing total operating costs. A column generation-based two-stage method is developed to efficiently solve the problem. Extensive numerical experiments demonstrate that the two-stage method outperforms both Gurobi and a column generation-based heuristic. Our results indicate that urban co-modality can lead to an average reduction of 27% in operating costs and a 37% reduction in total truck mileage, considering varying freight volumes in a real-world case study. Furthermore, we examine the impact of freight volume, collaboration between bus service providers and logistics providers, and the selection of transfer locations on the efficiency of the co-modality system. These findings provide a foundation and reference for assessing the benefits of co-modality patterns, developing operational strategies, and guiding policy formulation for co-modality systems.</p>