The research described in this report, Development Of A Method To Forecast Freight Demand Arising From The Final Demand Sector, describes a framework and a research approach to achieve insight into significant components of freight transportation in Alabama and the U.S.  The initial objective was to develop the ability to projecting freight traffic arising from  Read more »

The use of national freight data at the local level is challenging due to the high level of aggregation and because freight data is proprietary.  Many national freight databases aggregate information to the individual states or major communities.  Most methods of utilizing freight data depend on applying proxy factors to allocate the freight to the  Read more »

In smaller urban areas, freight transportation is often not explicitly modeled, but is included implicitly as a percentage of non-home-based trips, which has nothing to do with the actual behavior of freight. This incorporation has the potential to develop future traffic forecasts that are unreasonable and potentially will lead to poor roadway infrastructure investment decisions.  Read more »

The Alabama Statewide Freight Study and Action Plan was a study initiated by the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) recognizing the need for research in freight transportation. Research included identifying freight related constraints and how potential improvements to the State’s transportation system can facilitate freight mobility as well as the associated interrelationships between economic growth  Read more »

Using national freight data at the local level is challenging due to the high level of aggregation, its proprietary nature and the need to apply proxy factors to allocate freight for system planning. Planning factors used in freight system analysis must be capable of describing the freight generation and attraction characteristics of the region. Employment  Read more »

The use of local freight data in transportation planning is essential to ensure accuracy in the travel demand modeling process. However, unlike passenger transportation, where extensive research work has been performed into the collection and use of household travel data, limited research work has been performed to collect and use local freight travel data. This  Read more »

The ability to plan and forecast freight demand to support transportation infrastructure investment decisions is limited by the lack of available data at a level of detail that is meaningful to the transportation planner.  This paper develops an initial methodology for developing Freight Analysis Zones (FAZs) at a sub-state level to facilitate use of the  Read more »

This paper presents a modular approach for rapidly developing simulation models that can analyze and evaluate existing port operations, changes and expansions. Simulation is an inexpensive insurance against costly mistakes involving capital expenditures, but many managers still perceive simulation to be a costly and time consuming option. The underlying purpose of this research has been  Read more »

This research built upon previous work on the development of tools to bridge the gaps in the analysis and understanding of the relationships between economic growth and transportation infrastructure in Alabama. The tasks performed under this contract included: Development of the Integrated Freight Planning Framework including Trip Generation, Trip Distribution, Modal Split and Assignment and  Read more »

The ability to accurately incorporate freight moving to and from a port into an urban model is difficult in both small and large cities.  To address this issue, this paper presents an application in which the Freight Analysis Framework Version 2.2 (FAF2) Port Data was incorporated into a traditional urban transportation planning model for a  Read more »