Freight production and attraction of industrial, agricultural and livestock, food, and fruit and vegetable commodities

This paper analyzes freight production and attraction and their relationship with traffic analysis zone (TAZ) features. The effects of some parameters on the production and attraction of industrial, agricultural and livestock, food, and fruit and vegetable freight were evaluated using over 300 explanatory variables, i.e., land-use types, the numbers and areas of businesses, the characteristics of residents and employees, employment, land price, vehicle ownership per capita, and road network, and TAZ descriptors. The 2019 comprehensive master plan of Shiraz, Iran, in 325 TAZs was employed. A vehicle survey and roadside interviews were used to collect data in three cordons involving 143 stations. Vehicles of different types were counted in the vehicle survey, and the roadside interview forms included questions on the travel time, vehicle type, vehicle capacity, freight amount, freight type, and travel origin and destination. Then, the freight origin-destination (O-D) matrix was constructed. To evaluate the effects of variables on the production and attraction of industrial, agricultural and livestock, food, and fruit and vegetable freight using aggregated data in the TAZs of Shiraz, Iran, for different freight, modeling was performed based on minimizing the residual sum of squares, proposing a total of eight models. The adjusted coefficient of determinations (adjusted R2) was calculated to be larger than 0.55 for all eight models. In addition, the models were found to have root-mean-square errors (RMSE) below 130.