Development of a method to forecast freight demand arising from the final demand sector and examination of federal data to analyze transportation demand for local area through trips : final report for Alabama Department of Transportation, research project

Final report; June 2004PDFTech ReportProject 930-697Freight transportationFreight traffic measurementAlabamaAlabama. Dept. of TransportationAnderson, Michael D.Harris, Gregory A.University of Alabama in HuntsvilleNTL-FREIGHT-FREIGHTBTS Data DirectoryThis report describes the research performed to develop a framework and a researchapproach to achieve insight into two important components of freight transportation inAlabama, and the U.S. The first objective is to develop the ability to project freighttraffic arising from retail sales to households or to the final demand sector of theeconomy. Normally, this involves shipments from distribution centers and bondedwarehouses to retailers located in the state\u2019s population centers. The researchdemonstrates that this final leg of a shipment\u2019s journey to the consumer is growing veryfast and evolving rapidly.Major retail centers were identified in all of Alabama\u2019s cities with populations of over25,000. A subset of the retailers in these communities was chosen for a detailed analysisof their distribution network. The researchers conducted interviews to gather informationabout how each network operates. The information collected from the survey includedthe geographical region served, the physical and operational characteristics of thenetwork, volume of traffic, and anticipated future traffic volumes. The survey revealedthat most distribution networks serving Alabama can either be characterized as hub andspoke or route-based. The survey also uncovered many unique characteristics of eachnetwork.Finally, researchers determined a method to allocate freight traffic arising from the finaldemand sector to Alabama counties. Several variables were tested including population,employment, payroll and personal income. It was found that total personal income ofresidents in the county appeared to work best with population coming in second.The second research objective focuses on the use of federal freight flow data to forecastthe amount of pass through freight expected in urbanized areas in the state. The reportdocuments procedures developed to utilize the Freight Analysis Framework Version 2Database to determine the number of vehicles passing through an urban area in Alabama.The procedures developed in this research focus on the national level pass through data,trips from one state to another that pass through other states only because of that state\u2019slocation; pass through from the port of entries, where the urbanized area is located on amajor corridor; and statewide level through trip data, trips from one part of the state toanother that pass through the urbanized area because of its geographic location.The need for, and application of, the pass through freight forecasting is evident in thetransportation planning models each state is expected to develop and maintain forevaluating transportation projects. The ability to forecast accurately the pass throughfreight movements will benefit transportation planners in urbanized areas by being able to identify freight volumes that must be accommodated by the infrastructure, but for whichthe local area has no direct method to survey