Optimizing Multi Modal Transportation Networks for Sustainable Urban Freight Delivery, Case Study Southwest Nigeria

Urban freight transportation enables economic productivity but contributes to congestion, emissions, and safety issues degrading livability. This paper investigates optimizing urban freight in Lagos, Nigeria using a multivariate regression model analyzing survey data on delivery costs across varying vehicles, routes, distances and frequencies. The model had low explanatory power, indicating complex contextual interactions impact costs. Spatial network analysis and logistics simulation are proposed to further evaluate infrastructure, vehicle technology, routing, coordination and policies holistically. Transitioning to electric vehicles, leveraging real-time traffic data, freight consolidation and policy incentives can balance efficiency, sustainability and equity in urban freight systems. {"references": ["1.\tChen, Q., Conway, A., & Cheng, J. (2022). Sustainable urban logistics: trends, challenges and opportunities. Transport Reviews, 42(2), 263-292.", "2.\tCui, J., Dodson, J., & Hall, P.V. (2015). Planning for Urban Freight Transport: An Overview. Transport Reviews, 35(5), 583-598.", "3.\tJaller, M., Pahwa, A., & Hernandez, S. (2020). Evaluating the environmental impacts of online shopping: A behavioral and transportation approach. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 80, 102223.", "4.\tRuesch, M., Hegi, P., Haefeli, U., Matti, D., Schultz, B., & R\u00fctsche, A. M. (2021). Opportunities and challenges of urban logistics hubs\u2013A literature review. Research in Transportation Economics, 100544.", "5.\tSuksri, J., & Raicu, R. (2012). Developing a conceptual framework for the evaluation of urban freight distribution initiatives. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 39, 321-332.", "Taniguchi, E. (2014). Concepts of city logistics for sustainable and liveable cities. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 151, 310-317", "Taniguchi, E., Thompson, R. G., Yamada, T., & Van Duin, J. H. (2001). City logistics: Network modelling and intelligent transport systems. Emerald Group Publishing", "Trasarti, R., Pinelli, F., Nanni, M., & Giannotti, F. (2017). Mining mobility user profiles for carpooling. Proceedings of the 17th ACM SIGKDD international conference on knowledge discovery and data mining, 1190-1198", "Wangapisit, O., Taniguchi, E., Teo, J. S., & Qureshi, A. G. (2014). Multi-agent systems modelling for evaluating joint delivery systems. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 125, 472-483."]}