Inter-regional Freight Transport Model based on Spatial Price Equilibrium : Empirical Analysis of Japan

Abstract: This paper formulates an inter-regional freight transport model based on the spatial price equilibrium and applies it to Japan. This model covers twenty-three types of goods with eleven different regional industrial structures under the economic equilibrium theory. The unknown parameters of the model are calibrated in the iterative computation process. At the each iterative process, both of the prices of the consumption regions and the prices of the production regions are revised based on the estimation results the regression analyses for the freight flow data. The estimated model is applied to the inter-regional domestic freight transport of Japan. The national survey data of freight traffic flow of Japan is used for calibration. The good results of calibration are successfully achieved. Finally we simulate the case of Niigata-Chuetsu Earthquake.