Paolo Guglielminetti - BESTUFS · COLLECTION IN ITALY. Existing studies and surveys Alternative sources for urban freight distribution . are the detailed and continuously updated

Advisory

URBAN GOODS TRANSPORT STATE OF THE ART OF DATA

COLLECTION IN ITALY

Paolo Guglielminetti

WP3. First Round Table Definitions, data sources and data collection methods

22nd September 2005, Lyon

22/09/2005 P. Guglielminetti, PwC 2/13

STATE OF THE ART OF DATA COLLECTION IN ITALY

Agenda• Status of urban freight demand data collection

– Existing studies and surveys– Organizations responsible for data collection

• Status of data collection on urban freight transport supply– Freight vehicle fleet – Urban freight costs and prices– Infrastructure (loading / unloading parking)

• Conclusions– Main gaps– Expected development– Suggestions



Status of urban freight demand data collectionStatus of urban freight demand data collectionExisting studies and surveys

The extent of urban freight demand data collection is, in general, quite poor.A call for tender for a pilot statistics study on urban freight has been launched last year by the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. We have no information on the status of this activity.Other relevant database / studies concern specific cities where urban traffic planning or the implementation of urban logistics projects required a preliminary freight traffic data analysis, e.g.

• Rome City Center, STA, 1999-2000 [data for 1999]• Milan area, Da Rios G. e Gattuso D., 2003 [Data for 2001]• Padova, Genova, Siena: studies for transit point implementation• Bologna, Ferrara, etc: studies for the definition of urban freight policies

or of the PGTUs (Urban traffic plans) / European projects



Existing studies and surveys - Example

Politecnico di Milano, La Mobilità delle merci nell’area Milanese, 2003

Period • 1999-2002

• Counting of traffic flows

• Cordons interviews to commercial vehicles drivers to elaborate O/D matrix

• Interviews to commercial activities owners

• Elaboration of statistical data from other source on composition of commercial activities

• Exercises of Stated preferences with commercial activities owners

Content

Client • Milan City Authority



Existing studies and surveys - ExamplePolitecnico di Milano, La Mobilità delle merci nell’area Milanese, 2003

Vehicle flows at the inner cordon

Distribution of incoming motorway toll station flows



Existing studies and surveys

Alternative sources for urban freight distribution are the detailed and continuously updated files of transport operators.For some segments of the urban freight transport, e.g. the express couriers, these files are on electronic form. The production of detailed matrixes of parcel flows is (technically) quite easy.Main express couriers take advantage of such data for their transport flow optimisation.Such data could be an helpful support for improving the knowledge of urban freight transport, since they are more accurate than questionnaire surveys and more easy to be updated.However, availability of this data is not assured.



Existing studies and surveys - Example

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Performance improvement analysis for express couriers

Period • 2003-2005

• Collection of shipment data on local areas (origin / destination)

• Analysis of the existing local distribution organization (number of routes, average number of stops / route, average number of parcels collected / delivered per stop, number of km per route, total number of parcels collected / delivered per route, etc.)

• Cost reduction by redesigning / aggregating the routes

• Construction of a performance-related payment system to vehicle operators

Content

Client • Major italian Express Courier operator (> 50 mn shipment / year)



Existing studies and surveys - ExamplePricewaterhouseCoopers, Performance improvement analysis for express couriers

Number of shipments / day (collected / deliverd)

Routes’characteristics

Routes’ zoning



Organizations responsible for data collection

No national body is responsible for collecting data on urban freight.

ISTAT (national statistic institute) road freight data concern only vehicle with with max gross weight > 3,5 t.

Local authorities, as Municipalities or Provinces, collect data, in an independent way, in order to formulate general plan of transport at local level (PGTU, Piano Generale dei Trasporti Urbani, Urban general plan of transport).



Status of data collection on urban freight transport supplyStatus of data collection on urban freight transport supply

Freight vehicle fleet

Good vehicle fleet licensing data are collected by the PRA Pubblico Registro Automobilistico (Vehicle ownership registry)Data can be extracted by vehicle size and by area Data collection takes place in real time, since the registration of changes in vehicle ownership is compulsoryThe Automobile Club of Italy, managing the PRA, publishes a periodic bulletin and an Annual Statistic Yearbook with aggregated data. Most of these publications do not present data by vehicle size, so that it is difficult to isolate the local distribution vehicles.




Urban freight costs and prices

Operating costs: specialized press publishes periodic analysis on costs (e.g. Tuttotrasporti)

Prices charged for transport services: some transport operators published data on prices on their web-sites. Real prices charged to customer, however, depend a lot on the total number of shipment, on the frequency, etc.For some kind of transport, the prices are charged for a daily collection service on annual or seasonal subscription basis (e.g. laundering service for hotels and restaurant).So, the price structure in urban freight is very complex.




InfrastructureCapacity and layout of roads is generally available from Municipal Authorities (in many cases are GIS-Based data)

More detailed data, such loading / unloading parking places, are not always recorded and updated

The STA study for Rome counted 197 parking places for freight distribution in the city (only 14% of the drivers declared to use always or often those places, in most cases because they were occupied by other kind of vehicles).

Data on “nodes” (shipment collection branches, hubs, etc.) of private freight transport operators are generally available only from the operators themselves; this kind of information is very rarely collected / analysed by freight traffic experts



ConclusionsConclusions

Data collection on freight transport in urban areas, in Italy, is not well developed. Only few study at local level has been run in the last years andthere was no co-ordination among the different administrations or group that have run these studies.This is probably due to the absence of a institutional body in charge of studying, co-coordinating studies and summarizing data collected at local levelKnowledge on phenomena, however, is likely to improve in the next year, because of growing political attention on the issue.Alternative sources for urban freight distribution are the detailed and continuously updated files of transport operators. In order to make available these data, operators should be involved in the process of data collection / analysis & policy making. They should perceive an advantage resulting from the surveys.

Documents

Paolo Guglielminetti - BESTUFS · COLLECTION IN ITALY. Existing studies and surveys Alternative sources for urban freight distribution . are the detailed and continuously updated