Emerging Hot Spot Analysis of Tracking Data from a Logistics Company: How fast does freight move?

Freight transport has received increasing attention in recent years as regions and cities across Europe are struggling with congestion issues while the industry demands more efficient freight transport. Consequently, there is a need for knowledge about how fast freight moves on the roads and significantly about the location of the bottlenecks. This paper analyses whether such knowledge can be generated using tracking data from logistics companies. The chosen case region is North Jutland in Denmark, and the method deployed is emerging hot spot analysis on tracking data from approximately 1,500 trailers provided by one large Danish logistics company for the period 2012-2016. This methodology is relatively new in the transport field and has never been used in a Danish context before, and the paper shows that by using the tracking data and this methodology it is possible to identify where freight moves fast and slow in the region.