Appropriate Key Performance Indicators for Evaluating Integrated Passenger-Freight Transport

Abstract

The integration of passenger and freight transport into a unique scheme is a concept developed to increase the effectiveness of mobility and to reduce its environmental and social externalities. This solution involves infrastructural, vehicular, and nodal aspects. Each of them requires ad-hoc evaluations to verify its suitability to the proposed territorial context. Literature suggests the adoption of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to verify the technical and economic validity of a transport solution, but to the best of our knowledge contributions dealing with KPIs and integrated passenger-freight transport are still missing. To cover this gap, the paper first analyses relevant KPIs for freight-only and passenger-only transport. Then, it identifies a set of relevant KPIs that are suitable for evaluating the performances granted by an integrated vehicular system. Far from being the mere sum of the two types of transport, the set of 11 indicators includes the perspective of different involved actors (PT and goods carriers, PT users, clients, residents, and retailers). They cover financial, operational, environmental, and social aspects and allow a proper evaluation that includes the “3E” of transport planning (i.e., efficiency, effectiveness, and equity). In this way, a contribution to the correct appraisal of this innovative transport solution is available for policymakers and practitioners.