Freight Performance Measures

1
Freight Performance Measures
Crystal Jones FHWA Office of Freight Management
and Operations
2
INITIATIVE GOALS

• Short Term
• Develop baseline measures to support monitoring
  the agencys progress in Global Connectivity
• Mid Term
• To develop a rich data source that can be used by
  stakeholders in the transportation community and
  by academia
• Long Term
• Target investment in National Highway System
  based on sound data that identifies where the
  greatest needs exist

3
Why Performance Measures?

• Performance measurement is mandated by the
  Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of
  1993.
• Performance measures provide mechanism for
  understanding system performance
• Performance measurement improves the management
  and delivery of products and services
• Performance measurement demonstrates the
  accountability of Federal stewardship of taxpayer
  resources.
• Performance measurement helps justify programs
  and their costs --Given limited budgets, etc.,
  another tool for informing investment decisions
  at a national, state or local level

4
What are the benefits of performance
measurement?

• Set goals and standards
• Detect and correct problems
• Manage, describe, and improve processes
• Gain insight into, and make judgments about, the
  effectiveness and efficiency of programs, and
  processes
• Provide measurable results to demonstrate
  progress towards goals and objectives

5
FHWAs FREIGHT PERFORMANCE MEASURE (FPM)
INITIATIVE

• Strategic Goal Global Connectivity
• " Sustain the economic efficiency of goods
  movement on the surface transportation system
• Develop baseline indices and performance measures
  for truck travel on the interstate system
  (freight significant corridors) and border
  crossing time and delay for commercial vehicles

6
Global Connectivity

• Desired Outcomes
• Reduced barriers to trade in transportation goods
  and services
• More efficient movement of cargo throughout the
  supply chain
• Goals
• To reduce travel time and improve reliability of
  travel time in key highway freight corridors.
• To reduce delay of commercial vehicles processed
  at US land border crossings
• Measures (Tentative)
• Travel Rate and Buffer Time on Freight
  Significant Corridors
• Border Crossing Measures (TBD)

7
Travel Time Variability

• Incidents
• Work Zones
• Weather
• Fluctuations in Demand
• Special Events
• Traffic Control Devices.
• Inadequate Base Capacity

Research on the trucking industry shows that
shippers and carriers value transit time at 25
to 200 per hour, depending on the product being
carried. Unexpected delays can increase that
value by 50 to 250 percent.
8
Key Border Challenges

• Congestion
• Long Wait Times
• Unpredictability of Crossing Times
• Queues
• Security and Efficiency
• Safety
• Imbalance Between Crossings

9
Cooperative FPM Research Team

• Federal Highway Administrations Office of
  Freight Management and Operations
• American Transportation Research Institute
  (formerly ATA Foundation)
• Technology Vendors
• University of Minnesota ITS Institute

10
Identification of Freight-Significant Corridors

• Multi-System Process Used to Identify Primary
  Freight Corridors
• Freight Analysis Framework
• Industry Surveys Website Solicitations
• Technology Vendor Databases
• Information Cross-Factored to Generate
  50-Corridor Corridor Compendium
• Initial focus on 5 corridors
• I5, I10, I70, I65, I45

11
Selecting an Optimal Tracking System

• Technologies Considered
• Satellite-Based Systems
• Terrestrial Wireless Systems
• Hybrid Systems
• On-Board Systems
• Fixed-Site Systems

12
Data Collection and Analysis (ALPHA)

• Carrier ID Cleansing System developed for private
  sector Data Privacy issues
• Truck Tool software developed to relate
  position data to US DOT maps
• Alpha test successfully tracked speeds by
  corridor locations (manual calculations)
• Focused on segments of interstate highways

13
Data Collection and Analysis (BETA)

• Truck Tool reconfigured and automated
• Developed virtual mile markers software to
  accommodate missing points on maps
• Truck travel data automatically converted into
  travel times and speeds by location
• Micro-deviations in speeds can be used to
  identify bottlenecks and system impediments
• Can typically differentiate temporal bottlenecks
  from infrastructure bottlenecks
• Focused on entire interstate highways

14
Accomplishments to Date.

• Travel Time on Significant Corridors
• Data Collection and Analysis for Freight
  Significant Corridors
• I10, I70, I65, I45 and I5
• Location data from Satellite used to calculate
  travel rates and derive measures of travel time
  reliability
• 7 months of data (1 Full Year of Data by Jan 06)
• February FPM Report1.doc
• ..\Local Settings\Temp\Temporary Directory 4 for
  1-3.zip\3.jpg

15
Accomplishments to Date.

• Border Crossing Measures
• Conducted initial meetings with various
  stakeholders (Ambassador , Pacific Highway, and
  Peace Bridge)
• Collaboration with Transport Canada on their
  Border Wait-time Study
• Selected 5 US/Cda Crossings
• Blaine (Pacific Highway) Blaine, WA
• Pembina Pembina, ND
• Ambassador Bridge Detroit, MI
• Peace Bridge Buffalo, NY
• Champlain Champlain, NY
• Data Collection started Jul 1st 2005

16
NEXT STEPS and TAKE AWAYS

• Expand data collection and analysis to additional
  freight-significant corridors
• Explore other technologies that can support
  automated measurement
• Conduct initial analysis of data from border data
  collection effort
• Use the data to conduct two case studies on
  effects of Severe Weather and Work/Construction
  Zones on travel times
• Select Two States to work with research team to
  examine usefulness and application of the data
• Considering two outreach sessions to provide
  information on the initiative and provide a
  technical overview of how the raw data is used to
  derive travel time measures
• Finalize data sharing agreement

17
Conclusions
FPM INITIATIVE WILL PROVIDE baseline freight
performance measures that accurately reflect what
we are accomplishing, in quantitative terms,
right now, at the present time Intercity measures
that when integrated with the urban mobility
measures will provide a more holistic picture of
transportation system performance INPUT FROM
STAKEHOLDERS WILL PROVIDE measurable, time-based
targets that explicitly stipulates, also in
quantitative terms, what measure of performance
we expect
18
More Information
http//ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/documents/travel_t
ime_flyer.pdf
19
FHWA Office of Freight Management and Operations

• http//www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight
• Crystal Jones
• 202-366-2976
• Crystal.Jones_at_fhwa.dot.gov