Network Generation for Simulation of Multimodal Logistics Systems

Simulation of multimodal logistics systems might require realistic modeling of the transportation networks (road, rail, air, and waterways), e.g., when evaluating the use of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) on public roads or the combined use of trucks and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in humanitarian logistics with disturbed infrastructure. In this paper, we propose a simulation add-on to automatically generate infrastructure networks for multimodal logistics, including logistics locations (e.g., warehouses and terminals) and various transport modes (e.g., trucks, AGVs, and UAVs) with corresponding behavior. The proposed methodology allows for various levels of accuracy and opens up possibilities for simulating physical flows of various transport modes, congestion, stochastic behavior of the network, and variable transport demand over time in a simple, quick, and accurate way. We illustrate our approach using two case studies corresponding to the examples given above with AGVs and UAVs