Intelligent Functional Clustering and Spatial Interactions of Urban Freight System: A Data-Driven Framework for Decoding Heavy-Duty Truck Behavioral Heterogeneity

The rapid development of the logistics industry has underscored the urgent need for efficient and sustainable urban freight systems. As a core component of freight systems, heavy-duty trucks (HDT) have been researched regarding surface-level descriptive statistics of their heterogeneities, such as trip volume, frequency, etc., but there is a lack of in-depth analyses of the spatial interaction between freight travel and freight functional clustering, which restricts a systematic understanding of freight systems. Against this backdrop, this study develops a data-driven framework to analyze HDT behavioral heterogeneity and its spatial interactions with a freight functional zone in Shanghai. Leveraging the high-frequency trajectory data of nearly 160,000 HDTs across seven types, we construct a set of regional indicators and employ hierarchical clustering, dividing the city into six freight functional zones. Combined with the HDTs’ application scenarios, functional characteristics, and trip distributions, we further analyze the spatial interaction between the HDTs and clustered zones. The results show that HDT travel patterns are not merely responses to freight demand but complex reflections of urban industrial structures, infrastructure networks, and policy environments. By embedding vehicle behaviors within their spatial and functional contexts, this study reveals a layered freight system in which each HDT type plays a distinct role in supporting economic activities. This research provides a new perspective for deeply understanding the formation mechanisms of HDT trip distributions and offers critical evidence for promoting targeted freight management strategies.