Analyzing the role of seaport operations in generating inbound/outbound truck traffic demand and its implications on traffic system

Abstract

In gateway seaports, like the port of Rotterdam, a substantial proportion of all freight movements is related to trips to hinterland markets. Accordingly, outbound truck flows from port areas, especially in traffic rush-hours, may degrade the level of service on truck-dominated motorways or increase the unreliability of freight transport operation. Therefore, these truck flows during traffic rush hours are of particular interest to both port and road transport authorities.Consequently, the main objective of this paper is to identify key features of port activities that induce truck traffic during rush hours by using both terminal activity data, at the container level, and truck-specific counts obtained from loop detector data for the year 2015. In this paper, we focus on inbound/outbound truck traffic. From our analysis, we find that terminals operational attributes such as estimated pick up time and container discharge time contribute mostly to the rush hour truck traffic. Besides, we identify the vessel attributes (call size), container features (size and type), and commodities which brings inefficiencies in the traffic system. Our research would be of interest to traffic managers, port of authority, and freight forwarders to invest in interventions which could improve the reliability of road freight operations.