Agent-based Freight Transport Modelling 

Active Project

Freight transport systems deviate from passenger transport systems in various ways, accounting for multiple dimensions in mode-choice models, freight generation models, trip estimation and other key decision-making models. For policymakers, businesses and stakeholders, understanding freight transport’s unique needs is crucial in making efficient and effective choices. The concept of freight transport systems is unique as it considers various vital players, including production, inventory, transport logistics, consumption and trade, particularly international and inter-regional freight transport.

My PhD student, Kesewa Opoku Agyemang, is going to develop an aggregated-disaggregated agri-food supply chain model. Integrating an Aggregate-Disaggregate-Aggregate (ADA) freight modelling system, she is going to model the generation of trade flows and assignment networks in an aggregate way while simulating logistical decisions at the level of individual firm-to-firm flows. To estimate the disaggregate logistics in her freight transportation model, she’ll focus on ‘crucial choice’ decisions. These include ‘transport chains’ (choice of transport mode combined with transhipment locations); duration of storage; origin and destination of shipment; and shipment size.

Modeling the impacts of co-opetition among port freight transport actors

Closely working with the Logistics Manager of Port of Brisbane, the result of my PhD research assisted the Port in measuring the efficiency of import/export container supply chain and improving the logistics processes. It also helped me to fine-tune my research according to the industry needs. 

As a part of my PhD project, I investigated the likely impact of co-opetition of freight transport agents through an intelligent decision support system in hinterland container transport, or so-called port community system. 

In this project, I formulated an optimisation model (Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Capacity constraints), and an agent-based simulation model. The findings showed a huge saving in transportation costs as a result of full cooperation. The agent-based simulation model showed the withdrawal of some bigger actors from cooperation as a result of indifference in ultimate transport cost. This research helped to increase the momentum in the Port of Brisbane around developing a Port Community System and Empty Container Triangulation strategy. 

These presentation slides summarises the research I undertook in this space. For further details, please refer to the following publications:



This research has been presented in two international conferences as: