Freight Intermodal Connectors Study

Chapter 5. Connector Performance Impacts on Goods Movement and Supply Chains

Impact of Pavement Maintenance Costs

One of the impacts of substandard pavement condition on traveling is an increase in vehicle wear and tear. This in turn increases vehicle maintenance and repair costs, which are a component of vehicle operating costs. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Highway Economic Requirements System (HERS) was used to estimate the cost to improve all of the freight intermodal connectors to good condition based on their current pavement condition, functional classification, and area type.

The cost estimate for improving the pavement condition on all designated National Highway System (NHS) freight intermodal connectors to "Good" is approximately $2.2 billion (Table 21). The vast majority of these costs (78 percent) are for improvements targeted towards urban arterials. Table 22 shows the costs to improve connectors to good pavement condition by mode. It shows that nearly half of the costs for improvements needs to be focused on port intermodal connectors.

Table 21.Cost to Improve Connectors to Good Pavement Condition.

Area Type	Roadway Functional Classification	Before and After International Roughness Index (IRI) Ratings	Number of Lane Miles	Cost to Improve per Lane Mile1	Total Cost to Improve ($ Millions)
Rural	Principal Arterial	Fair to Good	82	220,000	18,070,800
Rural	Principal Arterial	Mediocre to Good	6	419,000	2,514,000
Rural	Principal Arterial	Poor to Good	4	618,000	2,472,000
Rural	Minor Arterial	Fair to Good	40	195,000	7,790,250
Rural	Minor Arterial	Mediocre to Good	26	369,000	9,582,930
Rural	Minor Arterial	Poor to Good	0	543,000
Rural	Collector/Local	Fair to Good	103	199,000	20,574,610
Rural	Collector/Local	Mediocre to Good	17	387,000	6,439,680
Rural	Collector/Local	Poor to Good	4	575,000	2,127,500
Urban	Principal Arterial	Fair to Good	711	424,750	301,844,340
Urban	Principal Arterial	Mediocre to Good	365	1,156,625	421,728,608
Urban	Principal Arterial	Poor to Good	124	1,888,500	233,380,830
Urban	Minor Arterial	Fair to Good	667	300,000	200,028,000
Urban	Minor Arterial	Mediocre to Good	254	813,500	206,222,250
Urban	Minor Arterial	Poor to Good	264	1,327,000	350,964,960
Urban	Collector/Local	Fair to Good	173	300,000	51,957,000
Urban	Collector/Local	Mediocre to Good	110	813,500	89,842,940
Urban	Collector/Local	Poor to Good	201	1,327,000	266,408,520
ALL	ALL	ALL	3,150		2,191,949,218

(Source: Federal Highway Administration Highway Performance Monitoring System, 2013.)

Table 22.Cost to Improve Connectors to Good Pavement Condition by Mode.

Area Type	Total Cost to Improve ($ Millions)	Percent of Total
Port	1,061,023,573	48%
Rail	599,430,960	27%
Air Cargo	389,708,887	18%
Pipeline	141,785,798	6%
ALL	2,191,949,218	100%

(Source: Federal Highway Administration Highway Performance Monitoring System, 2013.)

Impact on Vehicle Operating Costs

Pavement conditions on designated freight intermodal connectors also impact vehicle operating costs for both trucks and autos that use those roadways. Research on the relationship between vehicle operating costs and pavement conditions has developed a wide range of estimates. For example, research that was used as the basis of the Highway Economic Requirements System-State Version (HERS-ST) model indicate that the additional costs of a truck operating on poor pavement conditions is $0.23 per mile, while a recent National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) study (National Cooperative Highway Research Program 720, Estimating the Effects of Pavement Conditions on Vehicle Operating Costs, 2012.) estimated the additional costs at $0.04 per mile. Table 23 provides the increase in vehicle operating costs across all the pavement conditions using the NCHRP study and HERS-ST.

Table 23. Increase in Vehicle Operating Costs on Freight Intermodal Connectors.

Cost Increase	Category	NCHRP 720 Study	HERS-ST
Increase in Daily Truck Costs	Very Good
Increase in Daily Truck Costs	Good
Increase in Daily Truck Costs	Fair	$6,712	$40,857
Increase in Daily Truck Costs	Mediocre	$3,331	$35,446
Increase in Daily Truck Costs	Poor	$6,814	$39,937
Increase in Daily Truck Costs	No Rating	$1,310	$9,035
Increase in Daily Truck Costs	Total	$18,167	$125,275
Increase in Daily Auto Costs	Very Good
Increase in Daily Auto Costs	Good
Increase in Daily Auto Costs	Fair	$19,813	$226,438
Increase in Daily Auto Costs	Mediocre	$15,887	$240,865
Increase in Daily Auto Costs	Poor	$24,220	$249,557
Increase in Daily Auto Costs	No Rating	$6,359	$76,078
Increase in Daily Auto Costs	Total	$66,280	$792,938
Annual Total Increase in Costs (Millions)	Very Good
Annual Total Increase in Costs (Millions)	Good
Annual Total Increase in Costs (Millions)	Fair	$9.7	$97.6
Annual Total Increase in Costs (Millions)	Mediocre	$7.0	$100.9
Annual Total Increase in Costs (Millions)	Poor	$11.3	$105.7
Annual Total Increase in Costs (Millions)	No Rating	$2.8	$31.1
Annual Total Increase in Costs (Millions)	Total	$30.8	$335.2

Implications for Operations of Designated Freight Facilities

It does not appear the poor pavement conditions of freight intermodal connectors have a detrimental impact on freight facility operations. Truck drivers do not correlate increased wear and tear on their vehicles directly to their use of freight intermodal connectors. Truck drivers do not charge more to transport goods on roadways with poor pavement conditions compared to good pavement conditions. The cost of the increased maintenance and repair appears to be spread across their entire customer base and is not attributed to customers with facilities on poor connecting roads.

Impact on Congestion and Congestion Costs

The FHWA National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS) was used to estimate truck travel speeds on freight intermodal connectors. Free-flow speeds were estimated based on late night speeds, and congestion was estimated based on a peak morning hour (8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.), a midday period (12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.), and a peak evening hour period (5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.).

Based on measures used in the FHWA Office of Operations Performance Urban Congestion Report, congested speeds are defined as speeds less than 90 percent of free-flow speeds. (FHWA Operations Performance Measurement Program, The Urban Congestion Report (UCR), visited on August 24, 2015.) The figure shows that of the 901 connectors where speed data are available, 67 percent have at least one period where speeds meet this definition of congestion.

The total truck delay experienced on freight intermodal connectors in 2013 is estimated to be just over 4,000 hours every weekday based on analysis described in the Task 5 report. This equates to roughly just over one million hours of truck delay annually on freight intermodal connectors. Using the percentages of truck (AADT) relative to total AADT, it can be estimated that the total annual auto delay on freight intermodal connectors is 12,181,234 hours. As shown in Table 24, using the value of time for truck and auto drivers based on the FHWA HERS, this equates to $353 million in congestion costs for all vehicles on freight intermodal connectors in 2013. Using a four percent discount rate over a 30-year period, the cumulative long-term congestion costs can be estimated at $6.4 billion.

Table 25 shows the estimated annual cost of delay on freight intermodal connectors by mode. It shows that port intermodal connectors have the highest estimated cost of delay with 37 percent of the $353 million total followed by airports and rail intermodal connectors with 32 percent and 23 percent, respectively. This is vastly different than the pavement costs to improve freight intermodal connectors which showed that nearly half of the improvement costs need to be applied to port intermodal connectors and only 18 percent to airport intermodal connectors.

Table 24. Annual Cost of Delay on Freight Intermodal Connectors.

Vehicle	Annual Hours of Delay	Hourly Cost of Delay	Total Costs
Trucks	1,059,238	$53.15	$56,298,500
Autos	12,181,234	$24.37	$296,856,673
Total	13,240,471	N/A	$353,155,172

(Source: Federal Highway Administration Highway Economic Requirements System estimated 2014 hourly values of travel time for five-axle trucks and medium autos.)

Table 25. Annual Cost of Delay on Freight Intermodal Connectors by Mode.

Vehicle	Total Costs	Percent of Total
Port	$131,246,395	37%
Rail	$82,348,710	23%
Air Cargo	$113,309,702	32%
Pipeline	$26,250,365	7%
Total	$353,155,172	100%

(Source: Federal Highway Administration Highway Economic Requirements System estimated 2014 hourly values of travel time for five-axle trucks and medium autos.)

The cost of congestion on freight intermodal connectors can be compared to a cost estimate of adding capacity to alleviate the congestion by using estimated construction costs at State Departments of Transportation (DOTs). The cost to add a lane of capacity is estimated at $2 million per mile, exclusive of environmental and right-of-way costs, which can increase the cost of construction to $4 to $6 million per lane-mile. Based on these estimates, $3.2 billion would be enough to add capacity to 180 of the 540 most highly congested freight intermodal connectors.

This analysis indicates that benefits are likely greater than costs to add capacity to the most congested freight intermodal connectors, particularly in cases where there are limited environmental and right-of-way costs needed to increase this capacity. Benefit/cost analysis would need to be conducted on a case-by-case basis to determine the effectiveness of capacity investments on any particular freight intermodal connector.

Impact of Connectors on Broader Supply Chains

Freight intermodal connectors work with other elements of the transportation system to form the freight infrastructure that supports goods movement. By considering the freight intermodal connectors relative to other freight infrastructure elements and their relevant supply chains, observations can be made about the importance, designation, and performance of freight intermodal connectors. This chapter examines the following three types of facilities and goods movement types:

1. A Port of Savannah truck drayage example.
2. A Memphis intermodal rail yard truck drayage example.
3. A generalized description of the two primary air cargo supply chains.

Supply Chain Example—Port of Savannah

In 2013, the Port of Savannah's annual cargo volume exceeded 3 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs). Between 20 percent and 25 percent of imported containers moving through the Port leave the facility by rail with the remainder being moved by truck. This results in nearly 5,000 truck trips in each direction at the Port of Savannah per day. Gate surveys of truck drivers at the Port of Savannah indicate that there are two types of general supply chains for trucks leaving the Port: 1) trucks that carry goods directly from the port to points outside of the Savannah region; and 2) trucks that make multiple drays in a day to carry goods between the Port and local distribution centers. The gate survey indicates that trucks moving between the Port and local distribution centers represent two-thirds of all trucks moving in and out of the port gates, or approximately 3,300 daily trucks.

Trucks that carry goods between the Port of Savannah and points outside of the Savannah region typically utilize the designated NHS intermodal connectors to reach I‑95, including SR 21 (Augusta Road), SR 25, Grange Road, and Brampton Road. Alternatively, these trucks may utilize SR 307 (Bourne Avenue) to reach I‑16. However, Bourne Avenue is not designated as an NHS intermodal connector, which highlights the gap that often exists between roads that are used to connect to facilities and the roads that are designated as freight intermodal connectors. For the trucks that are carrying goods outside of the Savannah region, the nearest destinations include cities such as Atlanta, Georgia; Jacksonville, Florida; and Charlotte, North Carolina. Atlanta, which is 250 miles from the Port of Savannah, is the largest of these markets and a major inland freight hub in the southeast U.S. The travel between the Port of Savannah and Atlanta has five components, including a mix of travel on freight intermodal connectors in urbanized areas and interstate travel in both urban and rural areas, as described in Table 26 and shown in Figure 8.

Under free-flow conditions, the travel time on freight intermodal connectors relative to the total travel time can be estimated at seven percent of the total travel time, or 20 minutes of the roughly 5 hours of total travel time. If travel speeds on the freight intermodal connectors were to be reduced by one-half, which would constitute severely congested conditions, the total travel time would increase by 20 minutes. This increases the total travel time by seven percent, which translates to roughly $5 based on the FHWA HERS truck value of time. This can be compared to $80 in net income for the truck driver for making the trip. Therefore, even extremely slow or unreliable speeds on the freight intermodal connectors would not have a dramatic impact on this type of trip.

Table 26. Atlanta-to-Savannah Travel Time.

Travel Component	Distance (Miles)	Estimated Free-Flow Travel Speed (miles per hour)	Free-Flow Travel Time (Minutes)	Percent of Total Travel Time
Port to Interstate in Savannah using Designated Freight Intermodal Connectors	4	25	10	3%
Urban Interstate in Savannah Region	20	55	22	8%
Rural Interstate between Atlanta and Savannah	200	55	218	75%
Urban Interstate in Atlanta Region	30	55	33	11%
Atlanta Interstate to Final Destination (some travel on freight intermodal connectors)	4	25	10	3%
Total	258	53 (This number represents the average speed for the total trip)	293	100%

Figure 8. Map. Port of Savannah-to-Atlanta Truck Trip Components.

(Source: Federal Highway Administration.)

For the trucks that are carrying goods between the Port of Savannah and local distribution centers, virtually all of the travel is on local roads. However, these local roads do not neatly align with the designated intermodal connectors. Figure 9 shows the desired lines of trucks (in red) surveyed at the Port of Savannah gates traveling to local warehouses and distribution centers. The trajectories of these lines are such that a portion of their trip occurs on the designated freight intermodal connectors, and another portion occurs on other local roads. Assuming that one-half of their travel occurs on the connectors and travel speeds are reduced by one-half on these connectors, then the productivity of drayage trucks that travel between the Port and the distribution centers would reduce by 25 percent. This would significantly increase the cost of port drayage operations and overall supply chains moving through the Port of Savannah. If travel on the local roads that are not designated as freight intermodal connectors is compromised, then productivity would be reduced even further.

Figure 9. Map. Desire Lines for Port of Savannah Truck Trips.

(Source: Georgia Department of Transportation Truck Lane Needs Identification Study, 2006.)

The conclusion from examining truck trips from the Port of Savannah is as follows:

• For truck trips traveling from the Port directly to points further inland, the impact of the speeds of freight intermodal connectors is less significant than other factors such as the speeds on the Interstate System.
• For truck drayage moves between the Port and local warehouses and distribution centers, the impact of speeds on local roads is critical to truck productivity and important to overall port productivity. However, because freight intermodal connectors are not designated by connecting intermodal facilities to distribution centers, there is not necessarily an overlap between roads used for drayage and roads that are designated as freight intermodal connectors.

Supply Chain Example—Memphis BNSF Intermodal Rail Yard

BNSF operates an intermodal rail yard in Memphis, Tennessee on Lamar Avenue that serves domestic truck-rail movements. Trucks at this rail yard were surveyed as part of the Tennessee DOT Lamar Avenue Corridor Study. Trucks also were surveyed at one point north of Lamar Avenue and one point south of Lamar Avenue. All of the surveyed trucks were recorded as either traveling to points within the sub-area or through the sub-area. Figure 10 shows the surveyed trucks leaving the BNSF intermodal yard. The trucks exhibited the following patterns:

• About 11 percent of the trucks surveyed utilize nearby Shelby Drive to access I‑55. A small portion of Shelby Drive is designated as a freight intermodal connector, but it is not designated for the entire distance between the BNSF yard and I‑55, so there is a mismatch between the designation and use of this roadway.
• About 15 percent of the trucks surveyed utilized South Perkins Road to access I‑240, South Perkins Road also is not designated as a freight intermodal connector.
• Approximately 26 percent of the trucks surveyed utilize Lamar Avenue exclusively to leave the study area.
• The vast majority of the remaining 48 percent of trucks utilize local roads, some of which are designated as intermodal connectors to access local freight facilities in the sub-area. Trucks from these facilities likely distribute goods to several locations in the larger Memphis region.

The extensive use of local roads by trucks accessing the intermodal rail yard along with their relatively short distance traveled indicates that there is a strong connection between the performance of these local roads, the productivity of trucks accessing the intermodal rail yard, and the costs of the supply chain of goods moving through the rail yard. A severe reduction in the speeds of these local roads will reverberate through the supply chain.

Truck-following studies were also conducted at both ends of Lamar Avenue. Nearly one-half of these trucks traveled through the study region exclusively using Lamar Avenue. About six percent of the trucks used Shelby Drive to access I‑55, and eight percent of these trucks utilized Shelby Drive to access local freight facilities. The vast majority of the rest of the trucks utilize Lamar Avenue along with other local roads to access local freight facilities. The volume of daily trucks accessing the intermodal rail yard is more than 1,000 trucks per day. However, it is still nearly an order of magnitude smaller than the 9,000 trucks per day along Lamar Avenue. Therefore, the truck travel patterns in the sub-area are still dominated by the trucks using Lamar Avenue to access freight facilities that are not the rail intermodal yard.

Figure 10. Map. Destinations of Trucks Leaving BNSF Yard. (Note: Destination facilities with no numbers next to them received only one truck.)

(Source: Tennessee Department of Transportation Lamar Avenue Corridor Study, 2009.)

Note: Destination facilities with no numbers next to them received only one truck.

The implications of the truck travel patterns in the Memphis BNSF intermodal rail yard are as follows:

• There is a mismatch between the designated freight intermodal connectors and the roadways used between the rail yard and the nearby Interstate System.
• There is significant dispersion from the rail yard, such that there are several trucks that access nearby freight facilities on local roads that would likely not meet the minimum truck criteria for designation as a freight intermodal connector.
• The truck trip patterns from the intermodal rail yard are just a fraction of the truck activity in the industrial sub-area in which the yard is situated.

Supply Chain Example—Air Cargo

Air cargo traffic tends to fall into two categories: 1) industrial shippers with volumes per customer and high frequencies; and 2) consumer and business shippers with customers that have low and sporadic volumes that are integrated into larger shipment.

Industrial shippers tend to be serviced by freight forwarders and all-cargo carriers with catchment areas up to 600 miles. These large catchment areas are the markets served by the airport. Companies are willing to truck goods relatively long distances to take advantage of the lowest available air cargo rates that can be accessed within a one-day truck drive. There is significant competition between airports as most major companies are located within several catchment areas. For these types of supply chains, the performance of freight intermodal connectors is not a significant factor as the truck distances tend to be relatively long, and the travel time to the airport is not a critical component of supply chain costs or decisions.

Consumer and business shippers are serviced by integrated express carriers, such as DHL, FedEx Express, and UPS. Integrated services tend to have catchment areas up to 100 miles due to the need to be located within or very close to a large urban population center to generate volumes sufficient for operations. For integrated services, freight intermodal connectors serve an important role as the last mile between the Interstate and the air cargo facility. The reliability of travel speeds on connectors is critical as integrated services operate on regular schedules where unreliable travel times result in large buffer times being built in to scheduling, thereby increasing the number of vehicles and consolidation centers that are needed to serve the airport.

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