Modeling Commercial Vehicle Tour Frequency for Urban Areas

Evolution of small, medium, and large-scale industries and national economy globalization create a necessity to develop a freight transport demand model for developing countries. In India, inappropriate policies, mixed traffic condition, inadequate information about movement of goods, and an increase in online shopping lead the urban freight transportation system to a highly unsophisticated state. Therefore, significant research is required to understand the freight movements in urban areas. Gandhi market area in Tiruchirappalli city was selected as the study area as it is a large commercial hub with many establishments. Various variables involving driver tour details were collected and correlated by conducting spearman’s correlation test. Linear stepwise regression model is developed to estimate the tour frequency. The proposed model is then validated with field data, which denotes that the model fairly predicts the number of tours made per week. It also helps in developing policies for effective freight movements in future.