Truck Activity and Wait Times at International Border Crossings

Documenting the times trucks incur when crossing an international border facility is valuable both to the private freight industry and to gateway facility operators and planners. Members of the project team previously developed and implemented an approach to document truck activity times associated with crossing an international border by using technologies that are already in use by truck fleets. The approach relies on position, navigation, and timing (PNT) systems in the form of on-board Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled data units, virtual perimeters called geo-fences that surround areas of interest, and a mechanism for data transmission. The project team has been teaming with a major freight hauler whose trucks regularly traverse two of the busiest North American freight border crossings - the privately owned Ambassador Bridge, connecting Detroit, MI, and Windsor, ON, and the publicly owned Blue Water Bridge, connecting Port Huron, MI, and Sarnia, ON - to determine times associated with the multiple activities associated with using the facilities at these border crossing sites. In the study reported here, additional data were collected for future analysis, and previously collected data were processed to determine truck queuing times immediately upstream of the primary inspection facilities at the Ambassador Bridge and Blue Water Bridge facilities in both Michigan-to-Ontario and Ontario-to-Michigan directions, the times trucks spent in inspection at the facilities in each direction, and the times trucks spent traversing surface streets in Windsor, ON, after exiting or before entering the Ambassador Bridge facility. (Little border crossing truck traffic uses surface streets in Detroit, Sarnia, or Port Huron, so these areas were not considered for surface street analysis.) These more recently estimated queuing, inspection, and surface street times were compared to times previously estimated in another project. Additionally, an approach to portray deseasonalized trends in queuing, inspection, and surface street times was applied to these unique historical data. Empirical investigations of the association between queuing and inspection times were conducted, and models relating queuing times to truck volumes and inspection times were developed.

• Record URL:
  http://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/nextrans/assets/pdfs/new/120OSU2.1%20Truck%20Activity%20and%20Wait%20Times%20McCord%20and%20Brooks_NEXTRANS%20final%20report.pdf
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  Ohio State University, Columbus

  2070 Neil Avenue
  Columbus, OH  United States  43210

  Michigan Tech Research Institute

  Michigan Technological University, 3600 Green Court, Suite 100
  Ann Arbor, MI  United States  48105

  NEXTRANS

  Purdue University
  3000 Kent Avenue
  Lafayette, IN  United States  47906-1075

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • McCord, Mark R
  • Brooks, Colin N
  • Banach, David
• Publication Date: 2016-11-30

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 58p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data collection; Data files; International borders; Traffic queuing; Trucking
• Identifier Terms: Ambassador Bridge (Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario); Blue Water Bridge (Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Border inspections; Wait time (International borders)
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Highways; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01628898
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: NEXTRANS Project No. 120OSU2.1
• Contract Numbers: DTRT12‐G‐UTC05
• Files: UTC, TRIS, RITA, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Mar 15 2017 5:01PM