Operation, Safety, Environmental, and Financial Feasibility Analysis of Integrating Exclusive Truck Roads into SR60 Freight Corridor

Many jurisdictions are concerned with congested truck traffic and its effects on operations, safety, and the environment. A variety of strategies for truck lane/roads have been implemented in some 20 states to mitigate the effects of increasing truck traffic. The more aggressive of these strategies are: (i) restricted truck lanes where trucks are restricted to and/or from specified lanes,(ii) dedicated truck lanes where specified lanes that are dedicated only to trucks, and (iii) exclusive truck roads (ETR) where trucks use a road usually separated by barriers or median. In recent years a number of studies have examined the establishment of freight corridors, including the possibility of implementing truck lane/road strategies in Southern California. The current SCAG's RTP identifies truck lane/road strategies as a means to provide (i) efficient and smooth flow of containers, (ii) overall mobility along the corridor, and (iii) safety and sustainability improvement. RTP has proposed the construction of a network of ETRs for effective and sustainable flows of containers to and from San Pedro Bay ports. According to Leachman (2005), without congestion relief, even a small container fee would drive trade away from these ports. Failure to invest in goods movement infrastructure in an efficient and socially responsible manner could mean significant economic and environmental losses. We will develop a conceptual point of reference to integrate the ETR strategy into Southern California's SR60 transportation corridor. Next, we will establish a system and its set of criteria for vulnerability of the corridor segments to ETR. The criteria for the implementation of ETR forms a seven dimensional space: (i) operational effectiveness measured by the level of service, (ii) safety improvement measured by the number and severity of crashes, (iii) environmental sustainability, (iv) design concerns such as trade-off analysis between number of access points and usage, (v) public perception, (vi) legislative and administrative concerns, and (vii) financial/economics feasibility measured in terms of direct and indirect initial investment and yearly operational costs and benefits. Our final analysis will integrate these dimensions into a single measure of effectiveness of NPV or in its relative form as benefit/cost (B/C). The theoretical basis or context for this study can be summarized as: (i) system analysis and design, (ii) process flow analysis with the objective of creating effective, efficient, safe, and sustainable flow, and (iii) optimization and simulation techniques. The studies that suggest these bases as the next logical step are two projects sponsored by TxDOT and conducted by Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), two projects sponsored by SCAG on SR60 and I710, and a recent study sponsored by DOT on the economic feasibility of exclusive truck lanes. Our main sources of data are the SCAG heavy duty truck model, CalTrans truck counts, and MTA comprehensive truck/freight modeling efforts. The project will be centered at CSUN with significant contributions from CSUN student research assistants. In addition, the project will benefit from the participation of a nationally recognized USC professor in transportation safety and environmental studies, as well as from a program manager at TTI who is perhaps the most nationally renowned expert in truck lane strategies. Funding this proposal will break new ground by enabling high quality transportation research to be conducted at one of CSU's non-polytechnic campuses. More importantly, it encourages a fresh perspective as the research will be conducted in a college of business rather than a college of engineering. Consequently, CSU will provide a more well-rounded set of graduates for the transportation industry in Southern California.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $49995.00
• Contract Numbers:

  2009-NBG-1047

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  Department of Transportation
  1200 New Jersey Avneue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  California Department of Transportation

  1227 O Street
  Sacramento, CA  United States  95843
• Project Managers:

  Thornton, Rusty

• Performing Organizations:

  California State University, Northridge

  18111 Nordhoff Street
  Northridge, CA  United States  91330-8232
• Principal Investigators:

  Asef-Vaziri, Ardavan

• Start Date: 20090701
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20100630
• Source Data: RiP Project 24402

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Freight traffic; Freight trains; Freight transportation; Railroad transportation; Research projects; Traffic safety; Truck lanes; Truck loading facilities; Truck traffic
• Geographic Terms: Southern California
• Subject Areas: Design; Freight Transportation; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01461821
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Leonard Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 2009-NBG-1047
• Files: UTC, RIP, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Jan 3 2013 1:52PM