Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Internet Activities

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Freight Data and Decision-Making Tools
Talking Freight Seminar Series September 17, 2003
Felix Ammah-Tagoe, Ph.D. Senior Research
Consultant Bureau of Transportation Statistics
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Outline

• Overview of Freight Data and Analysis
• Updates of Existing Surveys and Data Programs
• GeoFreight The Intermodal Freight Display Tool

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Overview of Freight Data and Analysis

• Domestic
• International

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Overview of Key Freight Issues

• Domestic freight is increasing significantly and
  planning for future changes in demand a priority
• Freight traffic expected to continue to grow from
  both domestic activity and international trade
• Freight related safety concerns are growing
• Heightened security concerns and new requirements
  will impact freight flows

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Overview of Key Freight Issues

• Near real-time freight traffic data for
• Freight operations
• Security operations at state and sub-state levels
• More timely data for market share analysis

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Brief Analytical Trends

• Overall Growth
• Factors of growth
• Modal Shares

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Domestic Ton-Miles, Gross Domestic Product, and
Resident Population
Real GDP
Ton-miles
Ton-miles per capita
Population
Ton-miles per dollar of GDP
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Growth in Domestic Freight Ton-Miles (Index
19751.0)
Air carrier
Intercity truck
Class I rail
Water
Pipeline
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Modal Shares of U.S. Freight Shipments
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Change in Value of U.S. Freight Shipments by Mode
Source CFS data only.
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Share of Domestic International Freight (16
billion tons, 10 trillion )

• Over 16 billion tons of freight move on the
  nations freight system
• Domestic accounts for 90 percent of tonnage and
  82 percent of value

Source USDOT BTS, U.S. International Trade and
Freight Transportation Trends, 2003.
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BTS Domestic Freight Data Sources
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BTS Freight Data Sources

• Surveys
• Commodity Flow Survey (CFS)
• American Freight Survey (AFS) initiative
• Administrative Data
• Trade and Transportation data
• Waterborne Commerce Statistics
• Expanded access to PIERS data
• Carrier Reporting
• Motor Carrier Financial Operating Data
• Office of Airline Information

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BTS Freight Data Sources

• CFS Status
• 1993, 1997, 2002 (CTS before these)
• Conducted by BTS through the Census Bureau
• Provides data on how much freight moves by ALL
  modes of freight transportation in the United
  States, including multimodal

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BTS Freight Data Sources

• CFS Uses and Relevance
• Data on private and for-hire trucking for both
  intercity and local shipments.
• The primary source of nationwide data on the flow
  of goods, the geography of the movements, and the
  distance of shipments.
• CFS Data used to assess and analyze regional flow
  density, capacity, congestion, and hazardous
  material movements.

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BTS Freight Data Sources

• CFS 2002 Scope and Coverage
• 50K establishments out of 800K
• 2002 CFS same industry coverage as previous
  surveys (manufacturing, mining, wholesale, and
  selected retail businesses)
• Data on commodities shipped, their value, weight,
  and mode of transportation, as well as the
  origins and destinations of shipments

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Universe of Freight Flows by Sector
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BTS Freight Data Sources

• CFS 2002 Timeline and Products
• Data collection ____ Calendar year 2002
• Data processing ___ Ongoing as collection
• Analysis _________ Calendar year 2003
• Preliminary results _ December 2003
• Final products ____ December 2004
• Geographic ______ National level data,
  States and selected Metropolitan Areas

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BTS Freight Data Sources

• Though the CFS is the most comprehensive national
  and state level data currently available, it is
  done every five years as part of the Economic
  Census
• Desirable geographic detail not supported by
  sample design and size
•  
• Coverage excludes key freight sectors
• Also excludes transportation costs, travel times,
  and other freight-related variables

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BTS Freight Data Sources

• Major gaps in knowledge

SOURCE BTS TSAR 2000
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CFS Policy Relevance

• National Level
• Benchmark and trend data for supply and demand of
  freight movements
• Relative roles of each mode, and intermodal
  movements
• Evaluating capacity of system to serve freight
  demand
• Basis for forecasts of freight growth
• Identifying infrastructure bottlenecks

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CFS Policy Relevance

• State and Local
• Planners, engineers, and executives
• Forecasting of transportation needs
• Assessment of facility investment requirements
• However, national-level data difficult to use for
  state and local planning
• Geographically-specific domestic freight data by
  mode

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CFS Policy Relevance

• Greater geographic detail
• Corridor level demand and use
• State and local transportation of international
  trade
• Trade related data by industry groups not only by
  commodity groups

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CFS Business Relevance

• More timely
• Market segments demand supply
• Specific modal and commodity detail
• Performance rates revenue/costs per ton-mile
• Real-time and near-real-time data

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State Local Freight Data Needs

• Detail public-use flow data
• Through traffic to, from, within state, and
  county-to-county
• Flows for destinations by mode and commodity for
  local areas beyond top MAs
• Domestic movements of international trade

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Options for Meeting State and Local Needs

• Add-on questions to future national freight
  program to provide more detail at state and local
  level
• Continuous measurement
• Assisting state and local data users with tools,
  such as FAF and GeoFreight
• Designing consistent freight data collection
  template for possible use at local level

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Todays Options on Changing Sources of Freight
Data

• Beyond surveys?
• costs, burden, timeliness
• Data-driven models
• Information from service providers
• Canadian prototype
• Administrative information from traffic control
  and management systems?

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CFS Data Accessibility

• Confidentiality requirements has limited access
  and use
• Sample size reductions directly impacted
  geographic specificity
• Accessing and retrieving publicly available data
  needs improvement

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Back to Relevance

• Need for collected data to keep track of and keep
  up with major changes, including
• Overall growth in freight activity
• Impacts on system capacity, bottlenecks, and
  congestion
• Infrastructure use
• Changes in logistical and routing patterns
• Overall performance of freight system

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Freight Data Looking Forward

• Beyond the 2002 CFS Survey
• BTS is looking beyond the 2002 CFS survey and
  embracing the opportunity to provide improved
  data to the users
• Data that fills the data gaps and better measures
  changing freight trends
• Corridor level data that can be used to obtain
  estimates for individual ports and intermodal
  terminals

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Domestic Freight Data Beyond the CFS

• American Freight Survey
• Freight data users are calling for an expanded
  and more timely freight survey
• Expanded industry coverage
• Better geographic detail
• Detailed micro-data for corridor-level analysis
• Public-use data that meets sound disclosure
  requirements

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U.S. International Trade Transportation Data
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U.S. International Trade Transportation Trade
Data

• Multimodal Trade and Transportation Data
• Overall statistics U.S. Census Bureau
• Maritime U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and
  Maritime Administration
• Air U.S. Census Special Tabulations
• Land Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• Transborder Surface Freight Data
• Available since 1993 Monthly and Annual Data
• Border Crossing and Entry Data

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U.S. International Trade Transportation
Transborder Surface Freight Data

• Data Elements
• Method of Transportation
• Weight (Imports only)
• Value
• Commodity Classification (2-digit HS)
• State and Province in US, Canada and Mexico
• Port of Entry or Exit
• Freight Charges
• Container Code

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U.S. International Trade Transportation Data
Issues

• Trade data
• Weight data--various issues
• Method of Transportation only at port of
  entry/exit (no multimodal data)
• Method of Transportation definitions and time
  series gaps
• Under-representation of air shipments
• Concerns about port definitions (Customs ports
  vs. physical infrastructure)
• Concerns about origins and destinations
• Accuracy (physical flows vs. administrative
  flows)
• Lack of metropolitan area level o/d data

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U.S. International Trade Transportation
Critical Questions

• What is the magnitude of U.S. international
  trade, and what are the modal roles? How has
  this changed over time and why?
• What are the geographic patterns of U.S.
  international trade, and what factors influence
  these?
• How does the U.S. transportation sector impact
  international trade, and how is it, in turn,
  impacted by trade?

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U.S. International Trade Transportation
Critical Questions

• Which are the key gateways and corridors
  servicing U.S. international trade flows, and how
  does trade impact them?
• Infrastructure, capacity, institutional and
  security issues
• How will already changing trade relationships and
  the new security environment affect trade levels,
  partners, the transport sector, and key gateways
  and corridors?

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Analytical Projects Major Interpretive Reports

• U.S. International Trade and Freight
  Transportation Trends Report
• Importance of U.S. International Freight in U.S.
  Economy
• Trends and Shifts in U.S. International Freight
  1990-2002
• Trends in U.S. International Trade in
  Transportation-Related Goods
• Trends in U.S. International Transportation
  Services Trade

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U.S. International Trade and Freight
Transportation Trends

• 2002 held steady, while exports declined

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U.S. International Trade and Freight
Transportation Trends Report

• Importance of Trade in U.S. Economy
• Substantial Growth in Value of U.S. International
  Merchandise Trade over Three Decades

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U.S. International Trade and Freight
Transportation Trends Report

• Trade growth impacts U.S. transportation networks
  and facilities
• Movement of international freight contributes to
  highway congestion, environmental challenges, and
  safety concerns
• Managing and maintaining transportation
  infrastructure (major gateways and corridors)
  require large sums of public investment

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U.S. International Trade and Freight
Transportation Trends Report

• Shifts in Direction of Trade
• Over 75 percent of value of U.S. trade with 15
  countries
• Nearly one-third with Canada and Mexico
• Rising importance of Mexico (2nd ranked) and
  China (4th ranked)

Top 25 U.S. International Merchandise Trade
Partners by Value 1970 - 2001 (million
current ) Rank 1970 Rank 1980 Rank 1990 Rank
2001 Country Total 2001 1 1 1 1 Canada 380,693
5 3 3 2 Mexico 232,942 2 2 2 3 Japan 184,241 24
10 4 China 1 121,515 3 4 4 5 Germany
2 89,265 4 5 5 6 U.K. 82,195 17 13 7 7 South
Korea 57,381 15 9 6 8 Taiwan 51,543 7 7 8 9 Fran
ce 50,191 6 11 9 10 Italy 33,740
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U.S. International Trade and Freight
Transportation Trends Report

• Modal Shares by Value and Weight
• Over 1.6 billion tons moved in 2001, up 5 percent
  from 1997
• Maritime leads by weight (78 percent) and value
  (38 percent)
• Air accounted for 28 percent of the value and
  trucks had 21 percent and 11 percent of the
  tonnage

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Multimodal Gateways

• Substantial domestic transportation activity is
  needed to move goods to and from U.S. air, land,
  and sea ports
• The nations top gateways represent all freight
  modes
• New Yorks JFK was the top gateway overall by
  value
• JFK was followed by Port of LA-Long Beach,
  Detroit border port, and Port of New York-New
  Jersey

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GeoFreight

• The Intermodal Freight Display Tool

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• Bureau of Transportation Statistics Federal
  Highway Administration
• Office of Intermodalism, USDOT

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Background

• GeoFreight is a geographic information and
  decision support system
• An intermodal freight planning and policymaking
  tool
• The enhanced version of the Intermodal Bottleneck
  Evaluation Tool (IBET)
• Created by USDOT agencies
• Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS)
• Office of Intermodalism, Office of the Secretary
  of Transportation (OST)
• Office of Freight Management and Operations,
  Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)

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The GeoFreight System

• Helps policymakers and decisionmakers identify
  current and potential major freight bottlenecks
• Uses a routing model to assign data on freight
  flows to various transportation network
• Displays relationships between freight movements
  and transportation infrastructure, traffic and
  delays
• Identifies the flows of domestic and
  international freight across the nation

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GeoFreight Can Be Used To

• Display information on freight traffic flows by
  various modes (highway, rail, and water)
• Examine freight activity at key access points
  (highway-seaport, highway-airport, and
  highway-rail terminal)
• Analyze origins and destinations of freight
  movements on the highway, rail, and maritime
  networks

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Freight Movements on Highway 1998
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Freight Movements on Highway 2010
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Growth in Rail Freight Movement(2010 over 1998)
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Intensity of Rail Freight MovementsIn A Select
Region
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Intensity of Rail Freight MovementsIn A Select
Region (cont.)
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Multimodal Flows by Highway, Rail and Water
2010
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Origin/Destination Flow AnalysisFreight Movement
on A Selected Segment (1)
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Origin/Destination Flow AnalysisFreight Movement
on A Selected Segment (2)
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Questions? Comments

• Felix Ammah-Tagoe, Ph.D.
• Senior Research Consultant
• _at_ Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• Felix.tagoe_at_bts.gov
• 202.366.8926