Guide for Identifying, Classifying, Evaluating, and Mitigating Truck Freight Bottlenecks (2017)

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2017 N A T I O N A L C O O P E R A T I V E H I G H W A Y R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP RESEARCH REPORT 854 Guide for Identifying, Classifying, Evaluating, and Mitigating Truck Freight Bottlenecks Dike Ahanotu Richard Margiotta Cambridge SyStematiCS, inC. Cambridge, MA Bill Eisele texaS a&m tranSportation inStitute College Station, TX Mark Hallenbeck Anne Goodchild Ed McCormack univerSity of WaShington Seattle, WA Subscriber Categories Highways  •  Freight Transportation  •  Planning and Forecasting Research sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed research is the most effective way to solve many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation results in increasingly complex problems of wide inter- est to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. Recognizing this need, the leadership of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in 1962 ini- tiated an objective national highway research program using modern scientific techniques—the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP). NCHRP is supported on a continuing basis by funds from participating member states of AASHTO and receives the full cooperation and support of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation. The Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was requested by AASHTO to administer the research program because of TRB’s recognized objectivity and understanding of modern research practices. 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Published research reports of the NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet by going to http://www.national-academies.org and then searching for TRB Printed in the United States of America NCHRP RESEARCH REPORT 854 Project 08-98 ISSN 2572-3766 (Print) ISSN 2572-3774 (Online) ISBN 978-0-309-44652-5 Library of Congress Control Number 2017948431 © 2017 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. 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The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied in this report are those of the researchers who performed the research and are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; or the program sponsors. The Transportation Research Board; the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; and the sponsors of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of the report.

The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by an Act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private, non- governmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology. Members are elected by their peers for outstanding contributions to research. Dr. Marcia McNutt is president. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to bring the practices of engineering to advising the nation. Members are elected by their peers for extraordinary contributions to engineering. Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., is president. The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) was established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to advise the nation on medical and health issues. Members are elected by their peers for distinguished contributions to medicine and health. Dr. Victor J. Dzau is president. The three Academies work together as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions. The National Academies also encourage education and research, recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and increase public understanding in matters of science, engineering, and medicine. Learn more about the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine at www.national-academies.org. The Transportation Research Board is one of seven major programs of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The mission of the Transportation Research Board is to increase the benefits that transportation contributes to society by providing leadership in transportation innovation and progress through research and information exchange, conducted within a setting that is objective, interdisciplinary, and multimodal. The Board’s varied committees, task forces, and panels annually engage about 7,000 engineers, scientists, and other transportation researchers and practitioners from the public and private sectors and academia, all of whom contribute their expertise in the public interest. The program is supported by state transportation departments, federal agencies including the component administrations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other organizations and individuals interested in the development of transportation. Learn more about the Transportation Research Board at www.TRB.org.

C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP RESEARCH REPORT 854 Christopher J. Hedges, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Lori L. Sundstrom, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs William C. Rogers, Senior Program Officer Charlotte Thomas, Senior Program Assistant Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Scott E. Hitchcock, Editor NCHRP PROJECT 08-98 PANEL Field of Transportation Planning—Area of Forecasting Thomas E. McQueen, Georgia DOT, Atlanta, GA (Chair) Wenjuan Zhao, Washington State DOT, Olympia, WA Monica M. H. Blaney, Transport Canada/Transports Canada, Ottawa, ON Trevor J. Brydon, Southeast Michigan COG, Detroit, MI Keith J. Bucklew, Fishers, IN Todd L. Juhasz, City of Beaverton, Beaverton, OR Rebekah Karasko, North Front Range Metropolitan Planning Organization, Fort Collins, CO Andrew S. Lund, Center for Advanced Transportation Technology, College Park, MD Daniel C. Murray, American Transportation Research Institute, Roseville, MN Paul T. Nelson, Area Planning and Development, Boston, MA Scott Babcock, TRB Liaison

NCHRP Research Report 854 provides transportation agencies state-of-the-practice information on identifying, classifying, evaluating, and mitigating truck freight bottlenecks using truck probe data rather than traditional travel demand models. The report embraces a broad definition of truck freight bottlenecks as any condition that acts as an impediment to efficient truck travel, whether the bottleneck is caused by infrastructure shortcomings, regulations, weather, or special events. The comprehensive classification of truck freight bottleneck types described in this report provides a standard approach for state departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations, and other practitioners to define truck freight bottlenecks and quantify their impacts. Bottlenecks, situations in which the performance or capacity of an entire system is severely limited by a single component, delay large numbers of truck freight shipments and nega- tively impact the nation’s economy and productivity. Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) requires state DOTs to report how they are addressing freight bottlenecks. Transportation agencies need sound methodologies to define, identify, quan- titatively measure, and mitigate truck bottlenecks. Without such methodologies, they will be unable to address truck freight bottleneck issues systematically. Fixing one location may simply shift the bottleneck to another location on the network, with no improvement to the overall corridor performance. Without defining and describing truck freight bottlenecks by categories based on causal and contributing factors, decision makers will be unable to develop cost-effective solutions to address different types of truck freight bottlenecks. In NCHRP Project 08-98, Cambridge Systematics was asked to develop a guide that (1) classifies truck freight bottleneck categories based on causal and contributing factors (e.g., roadway geometrics, regulatory constraints, traffic controls, weather, and border crossings); (2) describes quantitative measures for each truck freight bottleneck category to determine bottleneck severity, impact, and ranking; (3) develops a scalable methodology for systematically identifying truck freight bottlenecks and evaluating their impact on local, regional, and national network performance; and (4) describes a range of options for solving or mitigating truck freight bottlenecks. This project produced the following appendices, which are unpublished herein but are available for download from trb.org by searching for “NCHRP Project 08-98”: • Appendix A: Selected Details of State-of-the-Practice Review, • Appendix B: Short Summaries of Selected Case Studies, • Appendix C: Data Quality Control Examples, • Appendix D: Additional Performance Measure Discussion and Analysis Procedures, and • Appendix E: Truck Bottlenecks and Geometrics F O R E W O R D By William C. Rogers Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

1 Summary 2 Travel Speed-Based Delay 4 Process-Based Truck Delay 9 Chapter 1  Introduction 9 1.1 Key Themes in Truck Bottleneck Analysis 9 1.1.1 Classification Structure Is Needed 10 1.1.2 Identification of Truck Bottleneck Cause 10 1.1.3 Connecting Mitigation Strategies for Specific Truck Bottleneck Causes 10 1.1.4 Truck Bottleneck Analytics Are Generally Consistent and Scalable 10 1.1.5 Trip-Based Versus Facility-Based Analysis 11 1.1.6 Truck-Specific Data Sources 11 1.1.7 Computation of Reliability Measures 11 1.1.8 Engaging Trucking Stakeholders 12 1.1.9 Mapping Tools Are Effective at Illustrating Truck Freight Bottlenecks 12 1.2 Classifying Truck Bottlenecks 15 1.3 Overview of Truck Bottleneck Data Considerations 16 1.3.1 Guiding Principles of Truck Bottleneck Analysis 17 1.3.2 Corridor-Wide Travel Time Data Reduction 20 Chapter 2  Overview of Truck Bottleneck Analysis Steps 22 Chapter 3  Identify and Assemble Data 22 3.1 Truck Bottleneck Data Considerations 24 3.2 Potential Data Sources 24 3.3 Description of Key Data Sources 24 3.3.1 Vehicle Speed and Travel Time Data 27 3.3.2 Volume Data 27 3.3.3 Other Data Sets 31 Chapter 4  Organize Data 31 4.1 Organizing the Speed and Volume Data (Conflation) 34 4.2 Travel Time (Speed) Data Organization 36 4.3 Volume Data Organization 37 4.3.1 Use of Paired Speed-Volume Observations from Detector Data 37 4.3.2 Assigning Short-Term Volume Count to Continuous Travel-Time Data 38 4.4 Select Roadway Segmentation 38 4.5 Create Truck Bottleneck Data Analysis Structure 41 4.6 Data Quality Control C O N T E N T S

43 Chapter 5  Identify and Quantify Truck Freight Bottlenecks 43 5.1 Identifying Travel Speed-Based Truck Bottlenecks 45 5.2 Options for Computing Travel Speed-Based Delay 48 5.3 Sample Outputs of Truck Bottleneck Travel Speed-Based Delay Calculations 52 5.4 Calculating Process-Based Delay 52 5.4.1 Overview of Process-Based Delay Categories 54 5.4.2 Process-Based Truck Bottleneck Methodology 54 5.4.3 Identify Affected Truck Trips 55 5.4.4 Quantitatively Measure Delay Impact 57 Chapter 6  Classifying and Evaluating Truck Freight Bottlenecks 57 6.1 Overview of Potential Causes of Truck Bottlenecks 57 6.2 Identify Causes of Travel Speed-Based Truck Bottlenecks 58 6.2.1 Example of Analysis to Identify Potential Causes 63 6.3 Ranking Travel Speed-Based Bottlenecks 67 6.3.1 Desktop Analysis of Bottleneck Impacts on Travel Times 68 6.4 Identify Causes and Rank Process-Based Truck Bottlenecks 68 6.5 Conduct Field Analysis to Refine Bottleneck Understanding 71 Chapter 7  Options for Mitigating Truck Bottlenecks 71 7.1 Matching Mitigation Options to Bottleneck Causes 76 7.2 Mitigation Options for Recurring Congestion 78 7.3 Mitigation Options for Nonrecurring Congestion 79 7.4 Mitigation Options for Operational Deficiencies 80 7.5 Mitigation Options for Geometric Deficiencies 82 7.6 Mitigation Options for Special Event Bottlenecks 82 7.7 Examples of Truck Bottleneck Mitigation Efforts 83 7.7.1 Florida DOT Example of Mitigating Truck Bottlenecks 84 7.7.2 Washington State DOT Example of Mitigating Truck Bottlenecks 87 Chapter 8   Incorporating Truck Bottleneck Analysis  into the Planning Process 87 8.1 Incorporation into Study Documents 87 8.2 I-95 Truck Bottleneck Analysis in North Carolina 93 8.3 Mapping of Truck Speeds in Indianapolis 93 8.4 Truck Bottleneck Analysis in Downtown Valdosta, Georgia 95 8.5 Truck Bottleneck Analysis in Idaho Statewide Freight Plan 97 8.6 Truck Bottleneck Analysis in Arkansas 99 8.7 Truck Parking Analysis in California 99 8.8 Truck Bottleneck Analysis in Georgia 106 Chapter 9  Conclusions 107 References 114 Definitions and Acronyms 117 Appendices Note: Photographs, figures, and tables in this report may have been converted from color to grayscale for printing. The electronic version of the report (posted on the web at www.trb.org) retains the color versions.