Understanding and Promoting Multimodal Freight Transportation System Performance within Mega-Regions: Lessons from Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence Basin

The Great Lakes Saint-Lawrence Basin (GLSLB) is a bi-national economic mega-region. It generates a disproportionate share of U.S. and Canadian economic activity and trade relative to its size and is home to a significant share of the two countries’ population. The region’s multimodal freight transportation system is essential to the economy of the region and beyond. The complexity of the GLSLB freight transportation system cannot be overstated. It spans all transportation modes, several jurisdictions, and handles a range of commodities, each with different transportation requirements. The authors are part of a team undertaking a study under the Transportation Research Board’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) to describe the current multimodal freight transportation system within the GLSLB. This paper summarizes some of the key findings of this work. It explores the characteristics of this regional freight transportation system and its economic importance. This paper also explores the barriers and constraints to the effective performance of this system and the opportunities to improve it, particularly through the development of an effective model for future research, planning and policy development.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AT045(1) AT045 Paper Review Subcommittee
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Roy, Marc-Andre
  • Booth, Mark
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Border regions; Economic impacts; Freight transportation; Lessons learned; Multimodal transportation; Performance measurement
• Uncontrolled Terms: Megaregions
• Geographic Terms: Great Lakes Region; Saint Lawrence Seaway
• Subject Areas: Economics; Freight Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; I10: Economics and Administration; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01365560
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-2811
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 20 2012 2:58PM