Simulating the impact of changes in a statewide freight system

This model of the Michigan Freight Transportation System simulates the decision processes of shippers for freight movements in the state of Michigan. Given an origin and destination, the model will produce appropriate routes for shipments of a specified commodity, and will allocate the shipments of that commodity on a percentage basis to those routes, according to the freight rates, transit times, and variability of transit times for those routes. The model can be used to examine the effect of changed circumstances on the shipments of that commodity. These can include changes in the physical network system, its ownership or operating policies, or underlying economic parameters. For either single mode or multimodal routes, the model generates the variable costs associated with these routes, the applicable tariffs, the expected transit times, and the variability of times in transit. These data are used by a probabilistic model which computes the expected “market share” for each of the generated routes.