Enhancing the integration, standards, and consistency of freight data sources—both private and public—improves the ability to target investment where needed. The FAF produced through a partnership between the Bureau of Transportation Statistics BTS and FHWA, integrates data from a variety of sources to create a comprehensive picture of freight movement among states and major metropolitan areas by all modes of transportation.
Census Bureau, FAF incorporates data from agriculture, extraction, utility, construction, service, and other sectors. For more information, see Freight Analysis Framework. FHWA's freight flow modeling research aims to improve our understanding of the local, regional, and national freight flows, including enhancements to the Freight Analysis Framework.
Considerations affecting the accuracy, granularity, and comprehensiveness of flow modeling include private industry data availability and proprietary concerns. The project provides innovative ideas and tools for developing improved freight datasets and freight modeling practices. Creating better data and models will enable State, regional, and local planners to better predict freight movement trends, and make more informed project investment decisions.
FHWA's freight management and operations research seeks to maintain the physical condition of infrastructure that carries freight traffic.
Understanding how freight flows impact the condition and performance of the transportation system helps FHWA and States support safe, durable, and high-performing infrastructure for all users. FHWA issued a report to the U. FHWA's freight infrastructure needs research assesses the demand, availability, and requirements of critical infrastructure for freight movement, including analyzing truck parking needs, identifying rural freight transportation issues, bridge strikes, and managing the designation of critical urban and rural connectors to improve the mobility of freight.
Descriptions of the systems are as follows: The Interstate system contains projects identified as being part of the limited-access system of highways that carry route designations such as I, I, I, I and I The Primary system contains projects located along major roadways that carry a route designation of less than The Urban system contains projects located within cities and towns.
The Secondary system contains projects located along minor roadways that carry a route designation of or greater. Miscellaneous projects are generally regional in nature and do not clearly fall into one of the above systems. The Public Transportation system contains public transportation projects. The Rail System contains passenger and freight rail projects.
Indicates the locality or region in which a project is located, or the agency under which a project is managed. HRTPO's website, www. Publications and other public documents can be made available in alternative languages and formats, if requested. Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. When Kedzie Avenue in Chicago was built during the early part of this century, it seemed adequate for its job.
Running through a residential neighborhood in South Chicago, the curving city street was used by commuters going downtown and by shoppers. Truck traffic was light. With no major design improvements, the Kedzie Avenue that was built for a residential neighborhood was not up to the task of handling the truck traffic of the s. The 2, truck trips generated every day by the Corwith Rail Yard were more than antiquated Kedzie Avenue could handle.
The aging signal systems simply did not allow enough of the lined-up trucks to make left turns into the yard or to leave it.
Kedzie Avenue, where traffic had once flowed smoothly and easily, became in the s a major bottleneck in the middle of Chicago, the nation's freight hub - "a choke point" in the words of Joanie Casey, executive director of the Intermodal Association of North America. But Kedzie Avenue is not the only choke point. Across the country, similar situations developed where passenger and freight traffic grew to exceed the capacity of the transportation facilities.
The increase in traffic has put the most severe strain on "intermodal connectors," the links where different modes of transportation meet and where passengers and freight change to different forms of travel.
There are 2, miles [3, kilometers] of connectors that we believe severely constrain the capacity of this great highway system," Federal Highway Administrator Kenneth R. Wykle said. If we focus on less than 2 percent of the system, we can significantly increase productivity. Intermodal connectors were neglected for many years as construction of the Interstate Highway System was the focus of the transportation program.
That focus resulted in numerous situations where, just as in Chicago, traffic moves rapidly along interstate highways, but getting to and from nearby terminals can be "slow going. Wykle said his travels during his career in the military gave him a "personal interest" in intermodal connectors. Not only were they deteriorating, but in many cases, they were inadequate to handle the volume of traffic.
They were slowing down the flow into and out of major facilities," he said. The administrator said there were four locations that "brought it home to me.
Casey said, "We can get things across the ocean, but the inland movement is a problem. Access to terminals is critical. If we don't have adequate access, our international trade will suffer in some way, shape, or form.
In recent years, planners at all levels - federal, state, and local - have begun to recognize the need to include intermodal connections in their planning programs. These connectors serve major ports, airports, public transit stations, Amtrak stations, intercity bus terminals, rail-highway terminals, ferry terminals, pipeline terminals, and multipurpose passenger terminals. ISTEA also includes concerns about intermodal transportation and facilities throughout the law, including in the planning section.
ISTEA declared, "It is the policy of the United States to develop a National Intermodal Transportation System that is economically efficient, environmentally sound, provides the foundation for the Nation to compete in the global economy and will move people and goods in an energy efficient manner.
Before ISTEA, there was little direction from the federal level for transportation planners to consider intermodal needs. However, the ISTEA policy mandate meant that connections to intermodal facilities would become a major focus of NHS, which carries 42 percent of the nation's highway traffic. The movement from ISTEA's "visionary" language to the actual inclusion of intermodal connectors in NHS was a six-year effort with some changes in direction.
0コメント