A MODEL OF RETAIL OUTLET SELECTION FOR BEEF

Multinomial logit models were used to explain consumer outlet selection when buying beef, specifically roasts, steaks, ground beef, and other types of beef. Outlets were grouped into supermarkets, butchers, warehouses, supercenters, and others, and the probability of selecting each outlet type over a range of demographic and other variables was tested. The models were estimated from household data, with 198,682 observations used in the estimation. Empirical results showed that the type of beef purchased and the size of the purchase played an importance role in the choice of outlet. Furthermore, the increase in mobility seen when consumers buy larger unit cuts could not be fully explained by price discounting. Implications for the potential growth of each outlet types are discussed.Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Designing distribution centres for agile supply chains

Increasing globalisation and market volatility represent major challenges for many supply chains, and particularly for the distribution centres within them. This paper examines how distribution centres are being designed to be agile even though they are, by their nature, long-term fixed assets. The research is based on semi-structured interviews with warehouse design companies to identify the range of agility types that were regarded as necessary during the design phase, and how these were addressed. The research also explores the cost, time and service level implications, whilst handling variances in demand or supply. The interviewee responses are expressed in terms of qualitative measures on Likert scales. The results indicate that there is generally a slightly or moderately higher cost to design for agility. Based on the literature and the case study responses, a methodology is developed of how to address agility within warehouse design, and areas of further research are identified

Regional Warehouse Trip Production Analysis: Chicago Metro Area

This research report provides primary research data and analysis on heavy truck trip generation and characteristics from regional distribution centers (RDC) and similar facilities in an effort to facilitate future public policy making regarding roadway transportation needs as well as land-use and economic development decisions. The report also provides secondary data and information on intermodal freight transportation - its growth and its economic impacts ??? to provide a regional, national, and international context for the research. The primary data was obtained from a field survey of 12 distribution centers of various scales (7 of them regional) in Northeast Illinois. The 12 facilities and their supervisory personnel were visited by the research team and analyzed in depth for their general business characteristics (e.g. type of goods, number of employees, hours of operation etc.), property characteristics (e.g. location, facility size, ceiling height) and their truck trip productions (e.g. number of arrivals-departures, geographic distribution of inbound-outbound movement, volume per quarter etc.). The findings of this research project in reference to the 12 facilities indicate the uniqueness and significant complexity of the distribution centers. There is clear evidence of an increase in size (sq. ft & ceiling) and automation (racking systems) of the newer facilities as well as 24-hour operations. The comparison of daily heavy truck movement shows significant arrival concentration between 8am-10am and 8pm- 6am. In contrast the heaviest departure activity is between 4-6pm. The majority of originating freight is from the Midwest with the outbound distributions also being allocated regionally then nationally and internationally (minimal allocation). Another result was the increased volume concentration in the third quarter of each year between July and September. The above results along with the significant expansions of RDC facilities in the last few years indicate the additional need for studying the locations of the various facilities and the heavy truck traffic volume they generate. The results should also be useful in determining the economics benefits/costs and impacts of these facilities for purposes of making infrastructure investment, economic incentive, and land use decisions.Illinois Center for Transportation R27-15published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Barge culture : the ebb and flow of cultural traffic

Early moving image devices and viewing apparatus more often than not used the city as their muse. Displaying and re-representing urban views, they revealed the spaces of illusion in our everyday environment, offering prefilmic spectacles to a receptive public. Social as much as than architectural, this interest in observing our immediate environment has provided us with a rich history of the relationship between architecture and the human body. Early films such as Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera and Laing's Metropolis create an interplay between the viewer and their spatiotemporal confines. The ability in film to manipulate time through freeze framing and slowing, and the multiplication and acceleration of movement, renders time as something elastic and magical. In the structures of many modern films such as Memento and Mulholland Drive, narrative structures are played with and chopped up, representing in themselves a fracturing of thought in different space-time structures. This paper reflects on urbanism and the ways in which artists use the city, revealing abstract notions of cultural use. It presents a curated project and a selection of works which map the city in different ways. </p

Estimating the Impact of Highways on Average Travel Velocities and Market Size

In this paper we examine the link between additions to highway infrastructure and development of a market area. We do so by first relating highway travel speeds to added highway-mileage and then relating travel speed to the size of the market area. This approach bypasses issues in the public finance literature that derive from estimates of highway infrastructure spending. Also, rather than examining the effects of improved transportation efficiency on enhancements of productivity, this research examines their effect on enhancements in demand for local production. Our thought, which is borne out in the literature, is that industry-level productivity in a metropolitan area may be improved only marginally by lower delivered prices of inputs due to very localized improvements in the freight transportation system. On the other hand, the market for locally produced goods and services will expand somewhat uniformly across industries due to generally improved traffic movements in a metropolitan area. By applying this approach to data from the Texas Transportation Institute, we find a significant but small positive effect of highways and arterials (as opposed to other roadways) on changes in metropolitan urbanized area and metropolitan population change. This suggests that demand for local production may well be enhanced by expansions of highway and principal arterials infrastructure.

E-commerce, Warehousing and Distribution Facilities in California: A Dynamic Landscape and the Impacts on Disadvantaged Communities

This work addresses the distribution of warehouses and distribution centers (W&amp;DCs) influenced by e-commerce, through spatial analysis and econometric modelling. Specifically, this work analyzes the concentration of W&amp;DCs in various metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in California between 1989 and 2016-18; and studies the spatial relationships between W&amp;DC distribution and other demographic and environmental factors through econometric modeling techniques. The work conducts analyses to uncover common trends in W&amp;DC distribution. The analyses used aggregate establishment, employment, and other socio-economic information, complemented with transportation related variables. The results: 1) confirm that the weighted geometric centers of W&amp;DCs have shifted slightly towards city central areas in all five MPOs; 2) W&amp;DCs show a non-decreasing trend between 2008 and 2016; and 3) areas with more serious environmental problems are more likely to have W&amp;DCs. A disaggregate analyses of properties sold and leased in one of the study regions shows a trend where businesses are buying or leasing smaller facilities, closer to the core of consumer demand. Among other factors, the growth of e-commerce sales, and expedited delivery services, which require proximity to the customers, may explain these trends. The study results provide insights for planners and policy decision makers, and will be of interest to practitioners, public and private entities, and academia. Caltrans, MPOs, and affiliated institutions of the National Center for Sustainable Transportation will directly benefit from the results as they want to avoid equity issues brought by the fast development of e-commerce, and its potential impact on W&amp;DC distribution

A robot swarm assisting a human fire-fighter

Emergencies in industrial warehouses are a major concern for fire-fighters. The large dimensions, together with the development of dense smoke that drastically reduces visibility, represent major challenges. The GUARDIANS robot swarm is designed to assist fire-fighters in searching a large warehouse. In this paper we discuss the technology developed for a swarm of robots assisting fire-fighters. We explain the swarming algorithms that provide the functionality by which the robots react to and follow humans while no communication is required. Next we discuss the wireless communication system, which is a so-called mobile ad-hoc network. The communication network provides also the means to locate the robots and humans. Thus, the robot swarm is able to provide guidance information to the humans. Together with the fire-fighters we explored how the robot swarm should feed information back to the human fire-fighter. We have designed and experimented with interfaces for presenting swarm-based information to human beings