National Freight Trends/Issues, System Flows, and Policy ... - PowerPoint

							The Importance of Data on
Trucking and Freight

Rolf Schmitt
Office of Freight Management and
Operations




                                          Quic kTime™ and a

            November, 2004           Photo - J PEG decompres sor
                                   are needed to see this picture.
We need to understand

 How does the movement of freight affect the
 transportation system?
    Contributions to congestion, infrastructure wear,
     environmental degradation, revenues
 How does the transportation system affect
 freight movement?
    Expected and unexpected delay, costs
 How do shippers and carriers adjust?
    Economic productivity, shifting economic activity
     among regions, global competitiveness
                                       Federal Highway Administration
                        Office of Freight Management and Operations
There are a large number of trucks
today




                               Federal Highway Administration
                Office of Freight Management and Operations
There are a growing number of trucks
in our future




                              Federal Highway Administration
               Office of Freight Management and Operations
2020 congestion without trucks




                              Federal Highway Administration
               Office of Freight Management and Operations
2020 congestion with trucks




                              Federal Highway Administration
               Office of Freight Management and Operations
Trucks and Congestion

 Contribution of trucks to congestion
    Percentage of segments with over 10,000 AADTT
    Congested miles based on AADT less congested
     miles when trucks are removed
    Bottleneck delay in hours based on AADT less
     bottleneck delay when trucks are removed
    950k hours of delay from truck pickup & delivery
 Effects of congestion on trucks
    Compare estimated VMT, energy use, travel
     times to minimum paths on uncongested network
                                      Federal Highway Administration
                       Office of Freight Management and Operations
Where do we get the numbers?

 Freight Analysis Framework
    Combines freight area-to-area flows, truck counts,
     and highway characteristics to estimate freight
     flows over a network
    Truck counts and highway characteristics come
     from HPMS
    Freight Flows from Commodity Flow Survey
    Commodity-to-truckload conversions from Vehicle
     Inventory and Use Survey
 Corridor Travel Time and Border Delay
                                       Federal Highway Administration
                        Office of Freight Management and Operations
Where do we publish the numbers?

 Highway Statistics, Freight Facts and Figures,
 Freight Story, & freight office web site
 Traffic Congestion and Reliability Report
 Cost Allocation and Truck Size & Weight
 Studies
 Condition and Performance Report and
 AASHTO Bottom Line Study
 TTI Annual Mobility Report & AHUA
 Bottleneck Study
                                   Federal Highway Administration
                    Office of Freight Management and Operations
Why do we care about the numbers?

 Investment needs to support highway
 spending, including freight-specific facilities
 such as intermodal connectors
 Trucking aspects of user charges and toll
 revenues, highway damage, safety
 Trucking and the environment: diesel
 emissions, noise, invasive spiecies
 Disaster response, incident management, and
 other aspects of highway operations

                                   Federal Highway Administration
                    Office of Freight Management and Operations
Commodities affected by I-40 bridge
collapse




                              Federal Highway Administration
               Office of Freight Management and Operations
Challenges ahead

 Local interest in freight issues stimulating
 demand for more timely, locally accurate data
 Freight crosses local boundaries, so we need
 to link national and local understanding to get
 a complete picture of freight and trucking
 ITS technology shows great promise for
 meeting these needs at reasonable cost, but it
 provides increasingly fragmented, narrow
 pictures of trucking with unknown quality

                                   Federal Highway Administration
                    Office of Freight Management and Operations
The bottom line

 Accurate and timely truck counts are at the
 heart of our national and local understanding
 of what freight transportation does to and for
 us, and what we need to do to keep the freight
 moving.

 “Statistics shall save us from doing what we
 do in the wrong places.” A. Lincoln, 1848


                                   Federal Highway Administration
                    Office of Freight Management and Operations
Freight Data and Analysis

 Rolf Schmitt
 (General, Freight Analysis
 Framework, data programs)
 202-366-9258

 Joanne Sedor
 (Freight publications and
 environmental studies)
 202-366-8959

 Crystal Jones
 (Performance measures)
  202-366-2976

 Rob Mulholland
 (Economic studies)
 202-366-4241


                                             Federal Highway Administration
                              Office of Freight Management and Operations