1. Channel Portfolio Tool (CPT)
Kenneth Ned Mitchell, PhD
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Engineer Research and Development Center
Coastal and Hydraulics Lab
Vicksburg, Miss.
Federal Highway Administration
Talking Freight seminar
November 16th, 2011
US Army Corps of Engineers
BUILDING STRONG®

2. Public Awareness Challenges
Corps invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in maintenance of our hidden national waterway infrastructure.
National dependence upon this vital infrastructure has not translated into full public awareness.
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3. CPT Background
The USACE Navigation Mission: to provide safe, reliable, and efficient waterborne transportation systems (channels, harbors, and waterways) for the movement of commerce, National security needs, and recreation.
Frittelli, J., HMTF Expenditures, Congressional Research Service, Jan 2011
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4. CPT Background
CPT is a web-based decision-support tool which helps convey the importance of Corps dredging activity to the efficient movement of maritime commerce.
Corps-only version:
Public version: TBD, coming soon
Started in late FY2008, with two primary objectives:
Provide consistent, objective prioritization of Corps Operations and Maintenance (O&M) dredging activities for allocation of Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF) outlays
Provide Corps personnel with improved access to and understanding of the data provided by the Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center (WCSC)
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5. Deep-draft Navigation O&M
350+ HMTF-eligible navigation projects are actively maintained
Wide variation in project spatial extent and level of use
USACE is historically a decentralized organization…
USACE District boundaries
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6. Channel Portfolio Tool (CPT)
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7. Waterborne Commerce Data
The Corps’ Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center (WCSC) collects and collates data from several sources concerning commercial use of US waterways.
Dock-level, origin-to-destination routing (Corps-use-only)
Includes tons, commodity types, vessel counts, drafts
Aggregated data already published at project level
Corps planning community has used WCSC data to support harbor deepening projects and inland studies
Corps Operations community has not consistently used this data beyond project-level tonnage and ton-mile metrics for O&M budget development.
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8. Spatial Join to Waterway Network
CPT spatially joins the docks in the WCSC database with the respective sub-reaches.
Full network connectivity, ensuring that all transited channels are appropriately credited.
Shortest-path routing used for domestic and inland river traffic transiting multiple projects.
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9. Depth Utilization Analysis
CPT can generate depth-utilization profiles
showing the distribution of cargo across the
range of maintained depths for any system
of navigation channels.
CPT then compares these tonnage-draft profiles to the segment controlling depths resulting from present shoaling conditions.
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10. Focus on Shoal-vulnerable Cargo
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11. Navigation Systems Defined
CPT provides a flexible, accessible means of defining systems of maintained channels.
Corps decision makers can now see the extent to which these navigation systems are utilized by commercial shipping.
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12. Visualizing Project Utilization
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13. Regional Summaries
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14. Visualizing Commodity Flows
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15. Visualizing Commodity Flows
Lower Miss. River
Outbound petroleum, 2009

16. Understanding Navigation Systems
Lower Miss. River
Inbound corn, 2009
Corps O&M activities must be coordinated in order to realize system-level efficiencies and
maximize benefits to the Nation.

17. Visualizing Commodity Flows
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18. Navigation Systems R&D
Budget ceilings
Domestic traffic, drafting at least 27 ft,
Dredging
Costs
$ 10 M
$ 20 M
$ 30M
$ 40 M
$ 50 M
Duluth-Superior
$ 6.0 M 1
Indiana Harbor
$ 12.5 M
Two Harbors_MN
$ 212 k
St. Clair River
$ 17 M
Detroit
$ 7.5 M
Presque_Isle_MI
$ 1.5 M
Burns Harbor
$ 2.5 M
Conneaut
Cleveland
$ 9.0 M
Ashtabula
Restored Tonnage
39.2 M
63.8M
90.3 M
107.9 M
130.9 M
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19. Navigation Systems R&D
Disruptions due to 5-ft shoaling
Great Lakes coal and iron ore
Miss and Columbia Rivers grain exports
Coal terminals;
e.g. Mobile, Norfolk
Tons per vessel
vs. draft
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20. Navigation Systems Analysis
The Waterborne Commerce data via the CPT gives the Corps a straightforward O&M budget formulation capability and allows for more advanced navigation systems analysis.
These efforts are drawing interest from other Federal agencies (e.g. CMTS) as well as the Transportation Research Board (TRB).
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21. Channel Portfolio Tool (CPT)
Questions?
Dr. Ned Mitchell
US Army Engineer Research & Development Center
Coastal and Hydraulics Lab
Vicksburg, Miss.
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