Amir Samimi - Assistant Professor Civil Engineering Department Amirkabir University of Technology
Abolfazl (Kouros) Mohammadian - Associate Professor Department of Civil and Materials Engineering University of Illinois at Chicago
Kazuya Kawamura - Associate Professor College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs University of Illinois at Chicago

This study embarked upon the development of a nationwide freight activity microsimulation as an acceptable analysis tool for policy assessments. Mode choice component of a large-scale behavioral microsimulation framework, named Freight Activity Microsimulation Estimator (FAME) was developed and validated in this study. A new concept for firm-types is implemented in FAME to keep the computational burden at a reasonable level and to diminish the need for highly disaggregated data. A total of ٤٦,٢٤٣ firm-types were generated in the U.S., among which more than ١٠ billion tons of domestic shipments were simulated. Total tonnage, value, and ton-mile of commodities for each mode were obtained as the final output, which showed a satisfactory match with public freight data in the U.S.

Freight modal selection, activity-based approach, micro-simulation