Abstract
While research in the Freight Trip Generation (FTG) field has increased over the years, FTG modeling studies in different urban settings have presented wide-ranging results in terms of the relationship between establishment characteristics and deliveries to an establishment. This thesis aims to uncover findings from FTG developments in metropolitan areas and evaluate their validity in the context of the retail industry in Singapore. The work focuses on using store-level data to understand and model FTG for shopping malls in Singapore and assess model accuracy with real freight vehicle behavior. Statistical regression and R programming applications are leveraged to (i) model the relationship between establishment-specific attributes and deliveries per day, and (ii) predict freight trips per day to retail malls in Singapore based on store-level information. Insight from surveys administered to retailers and carriers at multiple malls in Singapore are used to develop a wide range of FTG models. Statistical regression along with contributions from related studies are used to identify a suitable model to predict daily deliveries to retail stores in the environment of scope. The selected model’s statistical performance is compared to models developed in earlier studies in other urban environments. Model predictions are validated with observed freight vehicle arrivals at the surveyed malls in Singapore. With an average deviation between predicted freight trips attracted to the malls and the observed freight vehicle arrivals of 40 percent, the model is leveraged to assess FTG by retail malls across Singapore. For 201 retail malls in the city, model predictions estimate that more than 23,000 freight vehicles arrive at the malls on a daily basis. Additional findings from this framework include the relationship between establishment characteristics and deliveries to the establishment, characteristics and logistics attributes for different store categories within the retail sector, and FTG patterns for malls in Singapore. Finally, motivation for future research that re-assesses FTG by supermarket and department store establishments and further develop the framework are presented. Contributions from this work could be applied in the evaluation of urban planning and urban freight logistics initiatives, to explore FTG modeling for industries beyond the retail sector, to assess the impact retail malls in other cities have on local freight traffic, among others.