Transportation planners and engineers are becoming more aware of the need for planning at the regional level. As the transportation problems are no longer confined to urban areas and cargo handling are becoming more sophisticated, a basic understanding on the relationship between economic activity, investment and goods movement is needed. The research is concerned with the development of demand models for regional commodity flow. It analyzes past and present patterns of commodity movement using measures of regional economic activities as well as infrastructure investments as explanatory variables and describes qualitatively and quantitatively the patterns of goods production, consumption and shipment among the regions of the country. It also assesses the suitability of using standard techniques in modeling goods movement. The study reveals how airport investments, gross value added in services, mining and quarrying, gross value added in construction plus the presence of seaports relate to goods production, consumption and distribution. It is also shown that trade imbalance exists in most of the regions and that majority of domestic trading occurs between the more developed regions of the country. Traditional methods of demand modeling fail when faced with goods movement. As such, the study recommends that further studies, research, and more refined approaches to freight modeling be undertaken.
