Research On CGE-based Regional Freight Volume Forecasting Model

Freight volume is the main indicator in freight planning, policy-making and investment of freight-related infrastructures. Current freight forecasting models including trend and time series, system dynamics, input-output model and zonal trip rate model, have their disadvantages as well as advantages. Little insight into freight-economic linkages and limited scope for freight cost related policy lead to the exclusion of induced freight by freight cost reduction, making estimation from current models inconsistent with the facts.This study reviews the state of the art of current freight forecasting models by referring to other scholars’ researches, and then proposes the CGE-based freight forecasting model. Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) is a theory from econometrics and usually used in the appraisal of impact of policy in finance and tax. This study applies CGE by setting up production function, trade function, behavior function that describes economic entities, the freight volume as well as production/attraction volume are obtained when equilibrium is reached. The model considers commodity price as endogenous and an ad valorem is incorporated to embody freight cost, thus the disadvantages of current models are improved by the proposed model.The demonstration is about Chongqing City. The model output a very good result comparing to actual values and values from other scholars. We can find that induced freight by impacts of freight-cost related policy is indeed reflected in the model, thus current forecasting models are improved.The main contribution of this study lies in improvement of the disadvantages of current models using proposed CGE-based freight forecasting model and the probes into the multi-subjects amalgamation.