Freight Planning for Texas—Expanding the Dialogue

Efficient, reliable, and safe freight transportation is critical to the economic prosperity of any region. An efficient multimodal and intermodal transportation system reduces transportation and supply chain transaction costs and increases connectivity, reliability, and accessibility to local and global markets. An efficient freight transportation system, therefore, supports economic development and the expansion of international trade, increases national employment and growth in personal income and the Gross Domestic Product of a region, and improves the quality of life of its citizens. Intermodal and freight concerns have thus received increasing attention in the wake of globalization, increasing congestion, and changes in the logistics structure of shippers to facilitate just-in-time production. Both the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 and the subsequent reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21) have identified an understanding of the needs of the freight transportation sector as a critical component of transportation planning. This study sought to (a) improve the understanding of the size, scope, and type of commodities that are produced, consumed, and moved through different regions in the Texas, (b) gain an insight into the business and transportation system factors that shippers and receivers consider when making shipping decisions, (c) identify and describe factors that impact the competiveness of multimodal freight modes operation in Texas, (d) provide commodity data regarding origin and destination flows that will facilitate updates to various Texas freight models and studies, (e) identify and document significant multimodal freight system trends, needs, and issues in Texas, (f) recommend freight policies, strategies, performance measures, and infrastructure improvements that TxDOT can consider for implementation and funding, and (g) explore the interest, feasibility, and requirements for forming a Freight Advisory Committee in Texas.

• Record URL:
  http://www.utexas.edu/research/ctr/pdf_reports/0_6297_1.pdf
• Record URL:
  http://www.utexas.edu/research/ctr/pdf_reports/0-6297-1.zip
• Record URL:
  https://library.ctr.utexas.edu/digitized/zipfiles/0-6297-1-AppendixA-C.zip
• 
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Texas, Austin

  Center for Transportation Research, 1616 Guadalupe Street
  Austin, TX  United States  78701-1255

  Texas Department of Transportation

  Research and Technology Implementation Office, P.O. Box 5080
  Austin, TX  United States  78763-5080

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Prozzi, Jolanda
  • Seedah, Dan
  • Carrion, Migdalia
  • Perrine, Ken
  • 0000-0003-2272-0642
  • Hutson, Nathan
  • Bhat, Chandra R
  • 0000-0002-0715-8121
  • Walton, C Michael
• Publication Date: 2011-2

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Edition: Technical Report
• Features: Appendices; References;
• Pagination: 169p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Advisory groups; Business practices; Commodity flow; Competition; Economic development; Freight transportation; Intermodal transportation; Multimodal transportation; Needs assessment; Performance measurement; Transportation planning; Trend (Statistics)
• Geographic Terms: Texas
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01354152
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: FHWA/TX-11/0-6297-1, 0-6297-1
• Contract Numbers: 0-6297
• Files: TRIS, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Oct 19 2011 12:53PM