Freight Performance Measures: Approach Analysis

Significant efforts have been made in recent years to improve the collection and analysis of freight data and to better understand and respond to the needs of the freight community. Despite these efforts there exists relatively little research on approaches to examining the performance of the transportation system relative to freight and to assessing the effectiveness of infrastructure investments on freight performance. Traditional highway performance measures have limited applications to freight transportation issues, while previous FHWA studies focus on freight system performance only at the national level. Selecting appropriate performance measures for the freight transportation system is critical in Oregon…

Significant efforts have been made in recent years to improve the collection and analysis of freight data and to better understand and respond to the needs of the freight community. Despite these efforts there exists relatively little research on approaches to examining the performance of the transportation system relative to freight and to assessing the effectiveness of infrastructure investments on freight performance. Traditional highway performance measures have limited applications to freight transportation issues, while previous FHWA studies focus on freight system performance only at the national level. Selecting appropriate performance measures for the freight transportation system is critical in Oregon as well as in other states. They must be robust enough to accurately measure system changes but simple enough to clearly communicate to decision-makers. This research has two main objectives: (1) Develop a set of freight performance measures that can effectively guide state-level multimodal transportation investment; (2) Identify existing freight data sources and recommend a freight data inventory system that supports the performance measures. Previous research in the area of multimodal investment often attempts to develop a comprehensive performance-based project evaluation system, and involves qualitative assessments of the potential for proposed projects to achieve a comprehensive set of policy goals. However, for a state DOT the available funding for freight systems improvement and multimodal investment programs has historically been quite limited, and only a unique subset of all relevant freight performance measures has high priority according to local freight transportation conditions and current policy initiatives. Furthermore, existing data sources typically do not support a comprehensive planning process. Based on these observations, this research will develop data-oriented approaches to freight performance analysis that focus on evaluating the cost-effectiveness of various alternatives in achieving identified policy priorities. This method is more likely to be supported by existing and/or expected future freight data sources than more comprehensive planning approaches, while focusing on a smaller number of policy objectives at a time. ODOT will use the results from this study to help make freight investment decisions, plan future freight data collection activities, and communicate the benefit of multimodal investment to politicians and the general public. Strategic multimodal investment and a well performing freight transportaiton system are critical to the mobililby objective identified by USDOT.  Thus, this project is consistent with national and state transportation strategies and priorities.