Introduction to ITS For Freight Movements

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Introduction to ITS For Freight Movements
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ITS Freight

• Two major functions
• More efficient business operations
• More efficient regulatory enforcement

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Business Efficiency

• Heavily tied to development and use of
• Electronic business systems
• Just-in-time delivery of goods
• Goods tracking
• Employee performance monitoring

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Business Efficiency

• Goal is to manage business assets (particularly
  people and vehicles) more efficiently
• Increase revenue, and/or
• Decrease costs of operation
• Increasing costs are OK, if revenue increase is
  even larger

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Customer Supply Demand

• Customer Supply Chain Management
• Manufacturing
• Inventory Control
• Product Delivery
• Carrier Asset Optimization
• Technology
• Infrastructure
• Planning

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Successful Business Model

• Help customers meet goods movement needs
  (reliability, timeliness, capacity)
• At a cost lower than the competition,
• While generating a revenue that covers costs plus
  required profit

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Business Efficiency

• Manage/use assets more efficiently
• Drive trucks fewest miles
• Increase load factor (percent of time spent
  loaded)
• Be able to respond to customer inquiries
  (customer service)
• Correctly time arrival of trucks

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Business Efficiency

• Asset Management
• Know where each vehicle is located
• Know what its next destination is
• Know how full it is
• Know if it needs assistance, and if so, what
  assistance it needs
• This allows selection of the best vehicle for
  picking up any given load, and reduces down time

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Business Efficiency

• Manage fleet more effectively
• Direct routing
• Avoiding congestion
• More accurate trip time planning
• Control labor costs more effectively
• Pay tolls automatically
• No need to give drivers cash

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City Congestion Issues
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Business Efficiency

• What route does a vehicle take from origin to
  destination, and how long will the trip take?
• Use a paper map?
• Use electronic map (route guidance)?
• Can the truck actually use those roads?
• Are there size/weight restrictions?
• Rest areas? Fuel?

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Freight Route Selection
To Monowi, Nebraska (pop. 6) from Los Angeles,
California (pop. 15,608,886) Take I-10 East to
I-15 North to I-80 East Turn on U.S. 281 North
to State Route 12 East
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Route Selection
To Monowi, NE from Los Angeles, CA) Take I-10
East to I-15 North to I-80 East Turn on U.S. 281
North to State Route 12 East
Net Effect 27.2 MPH
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Route Selection Criteria

• Safety
• Regulatory Compliance
• Customer Service Requirements
• Asset Utilization

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Technology Needed

• Vehicle identification
• Vehicle location
• Where is the vehicle?
• What road is at that location?
• Wireless communication
• Vehicle / load status
• Driver identification (?)

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Technology Selection

• Vehicle Identification
• Dumb tag
• Static tag number
• No other functionality
• One-way communication
• Smart tag
• Static tag number
• Additional data can be stored on the device
• Two-way communication

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Vehicle Identifiers

• Automatic vehicle identification (AVI)
• Also Automatic Equipment Identification (AEI)
  frequently the same basic technology
• Can be placed on
• Trucks
• Trailers
• Rail cars
• Containers
• Pallets, etc

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Vehicle Identifiers

• Smart Versus Dumb Tags
• What other information is needed, and where do
  you want to store that information?
• The concerns are centered around
• Security
• Accessibility
• Response time
• Power consumption

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Vehicle Identifiers

• Other differences in tag technologies
• Size
• Power (distance/speed of tag reading)
• Communications technology
• Cost
• Longevity
• Interference with/from other electronics sources

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Vehicle Location

• GPS
• Global positioning system
• Most common now, goes anywhere
• Cellular telephone (E-911)
• Signpost
• Great for arrival processing
• Dead reckoning
• Some combination

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Vehicle Location

• All usually need to be associated with an
  electronic map of some kind
• GIS (geographic information system)
• Accuracy of that map?
• Completeness
• How is it updated?
• How often is it updated?
• Does it contain real time information?
  (Construction events? Accidents? Road closures?
  Congestion? Weather?)

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Vehicle Location

• Communication system required
• What is geographic coverage required?
• Local urban area? (Fed Ex delivery)
• Regional? (Safeway)
• National? (Schneider Freight)
• International? (Caterpillar Tractor)
• Cost for required communication bandwidth and
  level of reliability
• Timing and frequency of communication required
• One- or two-direction communication?

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Vehicle Communications

• New cell phone technologies tend to be
• Lower cost
• Faster
• But limited in geographic availability
• Subject to extinction (CDPD)
• Thus they tend to be chosen by firms operating
  primarily in urban areas

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Vehicle Communications

• Satellite communications tends to be
• More expensive
• Available over a far wider geographic area
• Tends to be selected for systems requiring very
  broad geographic coverage (international, or
  remote areas), and with either limited or high
  value data transfers

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DSRC Communications

• Tends to be arrival or departure oriented
• I just arrived at the toll booth so bill me
• I just arrived at the maintenance base, download
  my vehicle engine status information
• My vehicle is now leaving the yard, change the
  database to show the shipment is now in transit

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DSRC Communications

• Can be a short, fast burst of data
• This is my tag ID
• Can be a long, significant stream of data
• Here are all of my vehicle diagnostics

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DSRC

• Does not need location (i.e., GPS) information
• The DSRC reader itself gives you the location of
  the vehicle
• However, you still need a vehicle ID

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Vehicle/Load Status

• This is the information you need for making a
  control decision
• This vehicle is full/empty
• This vehicle has money in their account (or this
  is the account ID)
• The engine status values are as follows
• The manifest for this load is as follows

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Vehicle/Load Status

• Often requires a connection to an outside
  database
• Vehicle manifest, which is also used for
• Cargo (package) tracking
• Billing
• Insurance

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Vehicle/Load Status

• Other outside databases
• Payroll system
• Vehicle maintenance system
• Toll payment accounts
• Regulatory compliance (tax payment or mileage
  tracking)

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Business Practice Changes

• The change in business practice takes place using
  the information collected
• Location and load information allows a dispatcher
  to re-route the driver of an empty truck to pick
  up a new load
• Information that a load is leaving the yard is
  entered into a security (anti-theft) system and a
  cargo tracking system

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Business Practice Changes

• Vehicle/engine status information can be used for
  optimizing vehicle maintenance
• Vehicle speed and location can be used for
  employee performance monitoring
• Are they routinely speeding?
• Are they exceeding the hours they are allowed to
  drive?
• Are they making unauthorized stops?

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Archives of These Data

• Allows improved planning and review of business
  practice
• History of route performance gives a better
  understanding of reliability of trip
• This allows more efficient vehicle and driver
  scheduling
• Eliminates use of vehicle for non-company purposes

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Asset Management

• Schneider Freight
• Increased productivity by 25 through use of GPS
  and satellite communications
• Truck reports location once per hour

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Introduction to Regulation
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Regulatory Functions

• Two sets of laws
• U.S. and state specific trucking regulations
• A combination of state laws, and
• Interstate commerce regulations
• International Customs and Emigration requirements

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US Trucking Regulations

• Vehicle size and weight laws
• Vehicle Taxation
• Registration
• Fuel tax
• Weight distance taxes
• Safety
• Operating Authority
• (used to be a bigger issue than it is now)

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U.S. and State Trucking Regulations

• Trucks pay vehicle registration taxes to all
  states in which they travel
• Registration tax is based on how much weight they
  are allowed to carry (more registered weight
  bigger tax payment)

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U.S. and State Trucking Regulations

• Unlike your car, the taxes paid for a specific
  truck are divided between all of the states in
  which that truck operates
• This is true for both registration taxes and fuel
  taxes

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Multi-state Taxation

• Taxes are computed based on the fraction of miles
  traveled in each state

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Multi-state Taxation Example

• Truck A travels
• 100,000 miles in WA
• 100,000 miles in OR
• 200,000 miles in CA
• Registration taxes owed
• 100,000 / 400,000 WA tax rate
• 100,000 / 400,000 OR tax rate
• 200,000 / 400,000 CA tax rate

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Multi-state Taxation

• Fuel taxes are computed similarly
• (/gallon in each state) (Miles/state) / mpg
• Where mpg is computed based on total fuel
  purchased divided by total miles driven
• Thus, in a truck, you still owe fuel taxes to the
  state you drive in, no matter where you actually
  bought the fuel

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Multi-State Taxation

• Tracking how many miles you drive in each state
  is a BIG deal
• It is used to compute your tax burden in each
  state
• Since tax rates change from state to state, where
  your miles are located can greatly change your
  tax burden

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Furthermore

• You are not allowed to drive a truck through a
  state unless you show you have paid the
  appropriate taxes
• Can be done by purchasing a special trip permit

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Regulatory Compliance

• A great deal of effort goes into
• Computing miles by state within the trucking
  firms
• State staff auditing these records to make sure
  the companies are not cheating
• Checking (on the road) to ensure that the trucks
  on the road have paid those taxes

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Regulatory Compliance

• The weigh stations you see beside the road are
  one way of checking for compliance with tax
  payments
• Staff at weigh stations also check for
• Drivers not having driven too long
• Vehicle weights are OK
• No safety violations are apparent

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Regulatory Compliance and Weigh Stations

• Continued Monday