An attractiveness-based model for shopping trips in urban areas

This paper presents a modelling approach to characterise private car shopping trips in a city logistics point of view, in order to connect these movements with those belonging to urban freight distribution in the supply chain. The proposed modelling framework is a two-step procedure articulated as follows. First, an attraction model estimates the number of private car shopping trips arriving to each section of a given urban area. Second, a catchment area model relates the shopping trip destinations with the household locations. The model is calibrated using the data of both a database of the commercial activities and the recent household trip survey made in 2006 in Lyon urban area (France). We present the main results issued of the various simulations as well as several application examples and proposals, most of them made in a public policy perspective.