An activity-based freight mode choice microsimulation model

This study embarked upon the development of a nationwide freight activity microsimulation as an acceptable analysis tool for policy assessments. Mode choice component of a large-scale behavioral microsimulation framework, named Freight Activity Microsimulation Estimator (FAME) was developed and validated in this study. The results of a nationwide establishment survey, discussed in earlier studies, are used to develop the mode choice model for the entire US. Despite many previous freight mode choice models, the proposed model works at the disaggregate level of firm-to-firm. A new concept for firm-types is implemented in FAME to keep the computational burden at a reasonable level and to diminish the need for highly disaggregated data. A total of 45 206 firm-types were synthesized in the US, among which more than 14?8 billion tonnes of domestic shipments were simulated. Total tonnage, value, and tonne-mile of commodities for each mode were obtained as the final output, which showed a satisfactory match with public freight data in the US.