1. CANADA UNITED STATES British Columbia Washington Aldergove
Abbotsford-Huntingdon
Pacific Highway
Lynden
Sumas
Co-Chair Hoff asked me to help round out today’s session with an update on an IMTC project that, honestly, I hadn’t gotten around to.
A comparative review of data sources covering different sources of data that agencies and stakeholders use for what is, essentially, the same information.
So – a two for one deal. I finally get started on a small project we’ve had on our list for over a year and I have a hopefully intriguing data-topic for this session.
So, today’s installment, cross-border commercial vehicle count data.
What’s it good for? Without answering that question directly, I’ll just say that, people in this room us it for:
Basic knowledge of demand and trends
Internal agency allocation of resources
Base counts for expanding related information obtained through sample surveys (commodity, origin-destination, vehicle type, etc.)
Actual volumes relative to operational performance metrics
Allocation of funding in programs like Coordinated Border Infrastructure (CBI) Program
While we’ve understood historic truck volume data to be a bit inconsistent for many years, a project we did a couple of years ago put a finer edge on the need for a coordinated understanding of the observable discrepancies.
Point out Aldergrove on this slide and note the IMTC Subgroup / WCOG study.
Washington
UNITED STATES

2. A couple of years ago – IMTC participating agencies decided to form a subgroup to compile information about the Aldergove-Lynden port-of-entry. Prompted by CBSA’s announcement of an upcoming station-replacement and somewhat concurrent assessment that the facilities and operational capabilities of the facility were inadequate to continue accepting commercial vehicles. So that a more complete understanding of the crossings relationship to regional trade and regional and national economies could be fully considered in future decisions about this crossing (like the degree to which the preservation of future commercial options should be pursued), WCOG, working with the subcommittee, undertook a technical assessment, relying on past data collection efforts, existing sources of count data and commodity data, origin-destination data, surveys with local carrier firms, and regional economic data.
In putting together the early chapters of this report, I wanted to establish some baselines… like showing the relative shares of regional cross-border traffic. In doing this I wanted to quantify a KNOWN influence – the permit-port operation at Lynden Aldergrove.
Even though the data could show that condition. There was more discrepancy than I could easily explain.
Review slide: Pac Hway, balances well
Aldergrove NB higher then Lynden SB – yes, that’s what we understood to be a result of the operations policy
Sumas SB higher than Huntingdon NB – yes… but
Why is the DIFFERENCE between the two different? It should be about the same.
Looking at it another way…. (NEXT SLIDE)

3. CANADA UNITED STATES British Columbia Washington Aldergove
Abbotsford-Huntingdon
Pacific Highway
Lynden
Sumas
I assumed Pac Hwy was sufficiently balanced in vehicle flow in both directions.
To control for the policy based diversions (permit port), combined the directional totals for the other two ports to the east.
Washington
UNITED STATES

4. Cascade Gateway Truck Volumes – Finding a Balance
So, if you’re willing to go along with me and conclude that, in general, Pac Hwy is balanced out, AND, that there is not anything going on to significantly violate the principal – what goes up must come down – then we can conclude that either southbound Lynden-Sumas combined counts are high OR Aldergrove—Abbotsford-Huntingdon are low.
Well, this was the impetus for a small project – to stop wondering about this stuff and start asking structured questions of the agencies that actually collect the data.
Pacific Highway
Lynden-Aldergrove
Sumas-Huntingdon

5. 2011 Pacific Highway One-way Truck Counts by Data Source

8. 2011 Pacific Highway One-way Truck Counts by Data Source

9. 2011 Pacific Highway One-way Truck Counts by Data Source

10. 2011 Pacific Highway One-way Truck Counts by Data Source