A crowdsourced co-modality transportation system integrating passenger and freight

Abstract

Co-modality transportation aims to integrate passenger and freight flows into a single system by sharing public transport between passengers and freight. This paper proposes a crowdsourced co-modality transportation system (CCTS) for enhancing the practical implementation of co-modality transportation in urban areas. Firstly, empirical investigations are conducted, including semi-structured interviews with industry practitioners and online surveys with passengers, to collect system design considerations. Secondly, an overview of the crowdsourced co-modality management platform (CCMP) is presented by highlighting three key components: co-modality services, information infrastructure, and decision support system. Thirdly, we formulate the parcel assignment problem in the CCTS and examine the factors that influence the performance of the CCTS. The empirical investigations suggest that crowdsourced passengers care about the potential risks and the degree of operation difficulty in crowdsourced activities but do not care about privacy issues. In addition, the experimental studies show that crowdsourced co-modality is more feasible and promising if more passengers are willing to provide crowdsourcing services.