Planning On-Street Loading-Unloading Spaces considering the Behaviour of Pickup Delivery Vehicles

The provision and management of loading–unloading spaces for pickup–delivery vehicles are important issues in busy urban areas. In areas without loading–unloading spaces, delivery vehicles often park on the roadway lanes and this generates negative impacts in terms of road capacity and safety. The model described in this paper can be classified as a facility location problem. It determines the optimal location of loading–unloading spaces by minimizing the total cost that is comprised of delay penalty, fixed cost, operation cost, parking fee and waiting cost of both pickup–delivery vehicles as well as passenger cars. Furthermore this model takes into account both the behavior of pickup–delivery vehicles and that of passenger cars. Using a test road network the model was able to determine a configuration of parking spaces that achieved a cost reduction of approximately 16%.