Regional freight transportation policy planning is a difficult task, as few policy-planners have adequate tools to aid their understanding of how various policy formulations affect this complex, socio-technical system. In this paper, we develop a proof-of-concept model to simulate the impacts of public policies on freight transportation in a simulated region. We use the techniques of multi-disciplinary system design and optimization to analyze the formulation of regional freight transportation policies and examine the relative effects of policies and exogenous forces on the region in order to provide insight into the policy-planning process. Both single objective and multi-objective analysis is performed to provide policy-planners with a clear understanding of the trade-offs made in policy formulation.
A high-level overview of a Regional Freight Transportation Network