INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO REGIONAL FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION PLANNING: CASE STUDY OF MONTEREY BAY REGION (WITH DISCUSSION)

How a California metropolitan planning organization (MPO) overcame data limitations and developed innovative solutions to regional agricultural freight transportation problems is described. Data from government agencies and trade groups on annual fruit and vegetable production, fish landings, and wine production were combined with survey data on truck volumes and loading practices to develop novel approaches for estimating truck and rail trips. Similar methods were used to project future freight volumes by using key population, income, and agricultural productivity indexes to project agricultural production volumes and employment forecasts in the processed food industries and thereby forecast freight volumes in their industries. To identify problems and deficiencies in the system, new performance indicators such as number of internal truck trips per outbound line-haul trip, wait time per pickup, comparisons of hourly inbound and outbound line-haul truck trip distributions, and truck trips as a percent of total traffic volume on roadways with poor level of service were used. It was concluded that poor logistics planning, lack of coordinated information and communications about load availability, poor load consolidation practices, and inadequate truck parking and driver waiting facilities were among the biggest problems facing the region. A proposed freight logistics center, which may be developed as a public-private partnership, is now under consideration. The methods and programs developed in this study may have applications in other small to medium-sized MPOs.

• Record URL:
  http://trrjournalonline.trb.org/doi/10.3141/1522-04
• Record URL:
  https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=INNOVATIVE+APPROACHES+TO+REGIONAL+FREIGHT+TRANSPORTATION+PLANNING%3A+CASE+STUDY+OF+MONTEREY+BAY+REGION+(WITH+DISCUSSION)&author=M.+Fischer&publication_year=1996
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309062195
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1522, Freight Transportation Data and Planning Issues, Trucking, and Marine Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Fischer, M J
• Discussers:
  • Constantine, E K
• Publication Date: 1996

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Tables;
• Pagination: p. 27-37
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 1522
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Agricultural products; Case studies; Commodity density; Communications; Consolidation; Drivers; Forecasting; Freight traffic; Loads; Logistics; Metropolitan planning organizations; Parking facilities; Productivity; Public private partnerships; Regional planning; Regional transportation; Traffic estimation; Traffic volume; Transportation planning; Trucking; Waiting time
• Geographic Terms: Monterey Peninsula
• Old TRIS Terms: Driver waiting facilities; Freight volumes; Load consolidation
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers; Planning and Forecasting; Terminals and Facilities; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00727196
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309062195
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Oct 2 1996 12:00AM