Estimating Texas-Mexico North American Free Trade Agreement Truck Volumes

Abstract

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) truck traffic continues to grow on the international trade highway corridors linking the United States to Mexico. This situation presents planning challenges to accommodate NAFTA truck traffic along these highways and at U.S.-Mexican border ports of entry. Because transportation data are lacking, the numbers of trucks, particularly those carrying NAFTA trade to and from Mexico, are difficult to estimate. Two data sources available for estimating the number of trucks crossing the border are the counts of trucks crossing the bridges and the U.S. international trade data. Two methods of estimation, each using one of these data sets, are developed and described. Two separate truck flows derived from the models are explained and compared using a standardized truck type (equivalent trade truck) to represent truck flows. Interestingly, both methods provide useful outcomes.