Freight Performance Measures Crystal Jones FHWA Office of Freight Management and Operations

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 2 INITIATIVE GOALS Short Term Develop baseline measures to support monitoring the agency’s 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 3 Why Performance Measures? Performance measurement is mandated by the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 5 FHWA’s 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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)

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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.

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 8 Key Border Challenges – Congestion Long Wait Times Unpredictability of Crossing Times Queues Security and Efficiency Safety Imbalance Between Crossings

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 9 Cooperative FPM Research Team Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Freight Management and Operations American Transportation Research Institute (formerly ATA Foundation) Technology Vendors University of Minnesota ITS Institute

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 11 Selecting an Optimal Tracking System Technologies Considered: Satellite-Based Systems Terrestrial Wireless Systems Hybrid Systems On-Board Systems Fixed-Site Systems

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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 1 st 2005

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 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

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations 18 More Information

FHWA Office of Freight Management and Operations “ Crystal Jones