Workforce Development Resources

Commonly collected data about urban freight does not provide appropriate input to urban freight transport policy-oriented models. According to us, a policy-oriented model (Ambrosini et al., 2008) is a data-adjusted model, oriented towards operational policy analysis. The aim is to simulate freight distribution within urban areas for evaluation, control and design of the urban freight transport system. Policy-oriented models help public decision making about the main stakes associated with an urban sustainable development. These models have to simulate the present situation properly enough to provide a good quality forecast to satisfy both local urban and global environmental issues. Data collected in order to calibrate those models have to fit into the methods carried out for their working. So we propose first doing a critical investigation of different possible methodological approaches for urban goods movement surveying. Secondly we present some recent approaches staying more close to reality, stressing on the necessary quality of data to improve the reliability of the results.

This paper proposes a review of a few current models developed about urban goods movement thanks to a work carried out in the frame of the BESTUFS EU Coordination Action and a set of relevant papers concerning this field. In spite of a recent concern about this question, the operational and really implemented models are relatively scarce in comparison with the urban passenger and car traffic models or with the interurban freight traffic models. This paper focuses on urban goods movement modeling in Western Europe and Northern America and will try to enlighten the main features, according to each specific historical, institutional, demographic and geographic context, as well as the availability of data and the choices of modeling methods and their implementation. In the end, three models are selected for more detailed description and comparison: TLUMIP from USA, VISEVA-W and FRETURB from European Union.

Research proposition to investigate how to attract and retain a capable transportation workforce

Innovative approaches to integrated transportation delivery are essential to the sustainable future of global metropolitan areas. The world's most advanced automotive companies are designing traffic management models to complement the sale of automobiles. Public transportation authorities are reassessing their systems with an eye to sustainability and better system-management technologies. How can the fusion of real-time data management, smart phones and new technologies create better public transportation design, improve mobility and make city economies more efficient and offer sustainable growth?

Despite the recent recognition of the contribution of freight transportation to the performance of urban areas under the rubric of city logistics, the authors see a void in the study of how the stakeholders in the supply chain associated with the distribution of goods (whose destination is an urban location) might cooperate through participation in distribution networks, to reduce the costs associated with traffic congestion. Given that transport costs are typically over 45 percent of all distribution costs, with congestion contributing a substantial amount of cost in the urban setting, the importance of establishing ways in which supply chain partnerships might aid in reducing the levels of freight vehicle movements in urban areas has much merit. This paper sets out a framework to investigate how agents in the supply chain might interact more effectively to reduce their costs of urban freight distribution. The authors propose an interactive agency choice method as a way of formalizing a framework for studying the preferences of participants in the supply chain to support specific policy initiatives.

This paper discusses a methodology to increase the consistency with which urban good innovations and projects are evaluated. The methodology has been developed in France and is based on a detailed examination of 15 projects comparing the wide range of criteria used in their evaluation. Following the discussion of the methodology and a summary of how it was devised the paper goes on to show its application to two projects, one in France involving mail and small package deliveries and the other in the UK involving an urban consolidation centre for retailers. Using the two case studies demonstrates the application of the methodology and also shows some of the challenges in terms of data acquisition. The paper concludes by considering the value of the approach and outlining further research needs.

This report is a summary of proceedings from a policy and research symposium focusing on the links between goods movement, the economy, the environment, and questions of equity. Key issues addressed included: impacts of changes in production, trade, consumption, and congestion on goods movement; impacts of goods movement on health, land, and environmental quality; trends and policy concerns of international trade traffic; public-private cooperation and coordination in goods movement; land use conflicts with expanding ports and terminals; goods movement in rural areas; freight logistics and local impacts of global trade; alternative technologies and energy; emissions regulation in goods movement; and, governance challenges to planning, regulating and managing goods movement.

The Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics (BTRE) has recently conducted a study of the avoidable social costs of congestion in Australia. Congestion imposes significant costs on society with interruptions to urban traffic flow lengthening average journey times, making trip travel times more variable, and making vehicle engine operation less efficient. The latter leads not only to higher rates of fuel consumption, than would otherwise have occurred, but also to poorer urban air quality (with vehicles under congested conditions typically emitting far higher rates of noxious pollutants than under more freely flowing conditions, resulting in even higher health costs to the community). As part of the investigation of congestion occurrence, long-term trends in traffic within the Australian capital cities were analyzed. These trend analyses form the basis of the findings discussed in this paper.

Report emphasizes how decisions made in November 2008's elections will contribute to the advancements of educational programs that will prepare students to fill the shortage of educational, infrastructure sectors of environment

This report presents guidelines on evaluating and implementing strategies to improve the skills of the transit industry's maintenance workforce to keep pace with evolving technology

Research objective is to recommend effective strategies for recruiting, developing, and retaining high-quality managers for fixed-route and Paratransit systems. Results should serve large, medium, and small urban and rural public, private-for-profit, and private non-profit systems.