Impacts of Route Restrictions on the Movement of Oversize/Overweight Loads in Texas
Texas is known to be commerce-friendly, and Texas policy-makers want it to stay that way. One of the key components required for a vibrant state economy involves keeping highway freight moving, to include oversize and overweight (OS/OW) permit loads. The motivation for this research project came from: 1) Insufficient communication between the permit office and district personnel; 2) OS/OW reroutes required due to unanticipated district activities; 3) Damage to fresh pavement seal coats by OS/OW load movements. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) initiated this research effort to analyze the routes of historically permitted OS/OW loads. The primary objectives of this research included the development of criteria for assigning current and projected OS/OW groups to a designated future road network, identification of impediments to efficient routing for such loads, and the development of optimal and alternate routes for priority load groups between the most common origins and destinations. The availability of more advanced tools and technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has considerably increased the opportunities for transportation policy makers to better analyze vehicle routing data. As part of the project, the research team developed a highly efficient GIS mapping approach and converted a massive dataset of OS/OW permit routes into a GIS format. The mapping approach enabled batch processing and directly queried, retrieved, and stored data from/to an Oracle® database. This paper presents findings from the research, using assigned routes (along with associated route restrictions) and vehicle dimensional characteristics to investigate and predict future OS/OW shipment needs.
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Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT055 Truck Size and Weight.
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Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Middleton, Dan
- Li, Yingfeng
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Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
- Date: 2013
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 16p
- Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Freight traffic; Geographic information systems; Oversize loads; Overweight loads; Routes and routing; Size and weight regulations; Truck traffic
- Geographic Terms: Texas
- Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Freight Transportation; Motor Carriers; Operations and Traffic Management; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01476852
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 13-3849
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Mar 27 2013 9:39AM