The Simulation of Shopping Trips at Urban Scale: Attraction Macro-Model

This paper presents advancement on the calibration of a models system allowing us to estimate the goods attracted within urban and metropolitan areas. It is a component of a general modelling framework proposed by authors developed in order to support ex-ante assessment of city logistics measures. The primary characteristic of this general framework is the representation of interacting behaviour of commodity consumers and commodity suppliers/shippers/retailers. In fact, this framework allows us to simulate goods movements at an urban scale combining urban passenger and commodity flows (commodity flows are generated in order to support a given need), and to investigate the existing relationships among end-consumers and other involved decision-makers (e.g. producers, wholesalers, retailers).