Assessing public benefits and costs of freight transportation projects : measuring shippers' value of delay on the freight system.

Final report; Apr. 2011-May 2012.PDFTech ReportCFIRE 04-14UTCM 11-00-65DTRT06-G-0044Traffic delayFreight transportationShipmentsAnalysisBenefit cost analysisCostsEstimatesWisconsinTexas Transportation Institute. University Transportation Center for MobilityGong, QiMiao, QingWang, Bruce X.Adams, Teresa M.Texas Transportation Institute. University Transportation Center for MobilityNational Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (U.S.)United States. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology AdministrationNTL-FREIGHT-Freight Planning and PolicyNTL-FREIGHT-Freight Economics and FinanceNTL-FREIGHT-Trucking IndustryNTL-PLANNING AND POLICY-Freight Planning and PolicyUS Transportation CollectionFreight delay is detrimental to the national economy. In an effort to gauge the economic impact of freight delay dueto highway congestion, this project focuses on estimating shippers\u2019 value of delay (VOD). We have accomplishedthis through three strategies to monetize the impacts of congestion on shippers\u2019 operations:\u2022 Three half-structured on-site interviews with shipping managers in different type of industries wereconducted to obtain insights into their daily logistic operations and their subjective assessment of the delayimpacts. In light of the interviews, a comprehensive survey of major manufacturers and wholesalers withinTexas and Wisconsin was conducted.\u2022 The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and willingness-to-pay (WTP) method were then applied toquantify the impact of congestion on shippers. The AHP reveals that among four possible delaycomponents, en route transportation delay is the most important, which justifies WTP evaluating the valueof highway congestion delay. We have found a value of $56 per hour for congestion. Furthermore, a valueof $0.4 per percentage delay was also calculated for transportation time reliability using individual definedtravel time.\u2022 An analytical inventory model was used to examine the value of delay in view of mean and reliability oftransit time for shipment receivers. Nine industrial groups were analyzed. For example, shippers in thechemical industry are calculated to have an additional $13.89 cost on a truckload delivery if the transit timeis expected to increase by one hour. The random delay has an average of $31.04 per hour per truckloaddelivery