Modelling Freight Generation and Distribution for Nationwide Interstate Freight Movement

Freight modelling is very important to understand how freight moves from one place to another place. Due to data and other resource constraints like time and cost of conducting surveys, freight models are not available for various countries. Overcoming these constraints, freight generation and distribution models are developed using secondary sources of data. The primary motivation of the study is to understand the different factors on which freight generation depends upon. This is accomplished by building ordinary least squares regression models. Net State Domestic Product, Area, Agricultural Area, Secondary sector workers, Petroleum and Electricity Consumption of the Traffic Analysis Zones are the factors that affect freight generation. The secondary motivation of the study is to estimate the friction factors for the gravity model by calibration using three-dimensional furness procedure, being used for the first time in freight distribution. The important contributions of this paper are an improved understanding of freight movement patterns at the regional level and the estimation of friction factors that can be used for predicting future freight movements when origin–destination data are not available.