Incorporating Urban-Area Truck Freight Value into the Urban Mobility Report

Abstract

For more than 30 years, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) has developed methodologies and appropriate performance measures for estimating congestion performance and communicating them to technical and nontechnical audiences. TTI's Urban Mobility Report (UMR) has historically focused on passenger car congestion (i.e., congestion caused by the average commuter). However, roadway traffic congestion certainly affects both commuters and goods movement. With the documented growth of freight shipments and value, particularly in trucking, researchers developed and applied a methodology to include in UMR the truck freight commodity value that is affected by congestion in urban areas. The methodology uses data from FHWA's Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) and Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS). Commodity values supplied by the FAF are integrated into truck vehicle miles of travel calculated from the HPMS roadway inventory. Researchers estimated that $7 trillion worth of commodities were trucked on America's urban streets and highways during 2010. At the urban-area level, the results of the truck value measure appear to be intuitive, as bigger cities consume more goods and the greater consumption means a higher value of freight movement. The addition of a truck value to the UMR provides another dimension to inform policy makers and decision makers about the congestion problem. This addition also serves to inform trucking stakeholders with an estimate of the amount of truck value that is affected by congestion. Researchers will continue to include the truck freight value performance measure in subsequent releases of the UMR.