Identify Potential Causes of Truck Bottlenecks on Freeways and Develop Mitigation Strategies

Freight transportation provides a significant contribution to our nation’s economy. Reliable and accessible freight network enables business in the Twin Cities to be more competitive in the Upper Midwest region. Accurate and reliable freight data on freight activity is essential for freight planning, forecasting and decision making on infrastructure investment. Building on previous research to measure freight mobility and reliability along key freight corridors in the Twin Cities metro area, this project will leverage the research team's previous development for assessing truck congestions and travel time reliability to identify and investigate potential causes of truck bottlenecks and develop mitigation strategies on major truck highway corridors in the 8-county metro area. In addition, the team will also include key freight corridors that connect to the regional freight centers in St. Cloud, Mankato, and Rochester areas. The team plans to investigate potential causes of truck bottlenecks for recurring and non-recurring congestion conditions by merging truck volume and congestion information on a geographic information systems (GIS) framework for spatial analysis. The team also proposes to develop a systematic reporting tool to rank truck bottlenecks truck highway corridors. This tool will allow agencies to monitor the truck bottlenecks and evaluate the impact of deployed mitigation strategies on a regular basis. The objectives of this project are to (1) identify truck bottlenecks and assess congestion impact, (2) examine and analyze trucking activity nearby congested areas and investigate possible causes of recurring congestions, (3) develop and recommend potential mitigation solutions for improving system performance for all users, and (4) develop a systematic reporting tool to rank truck bottlenecks and use the tool to evaluate the impact of deployed mitigation strategies.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $100000
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747120

• Sponsor Organizations:

  United States Department of Transportation - FHWA - LTAP

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC    20590

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Freight Mobility Research Institute

  Florida Atlantic University
  Boca Raton, FL  United States  33431
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

  Center for Transportation Studies
  Minneapolis, MN  United States  55455
• Principal Investigators:

  Liao, Chen-Fu

  Hourdos, John

• Start Date: 20171001
• Expected Completion Date: 20181130
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bottlenecks; Countermeasures; Freeways; Freight traffic; Geographic information systems; Impacts; Ranking (Statistics); Traffic congestion; Traffic data; Traffic volume; Truck traffic
• Geographic Terms: Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (Minnesota)
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01677602
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Freight Mobility Research Institute
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747120
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Aug 11 2018 10:05PM