United States-European Commission Urban Freight Twinning Initiative: Compendium of Project Summaries
Overview of Second Annual Urban Freight Roundtable at 2017 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting

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Research

United States

Freight Fluidity

"Freight fluidity" is a broad term referring to the characteristics of a multimodal freight network in a geographic area of interest, where any number of specific modal data elements and performance measures are used to describe the network performance (including costs and resiliency) and quantity of freight moved (including commodity value) to inform decisionmaking.

The Texas A&M Transportation Institute is conducting the following activities related to freight fluidity:

• Demonstrating and implementing the freight fluidity concept in Texas (statewide and border fluidity) and Maryland using key activity centers and corridors with high truck volumes.
• Providing technical assistance (as part of a consultant team) for the development of FHWA's National Freight Fluidity Monitoring Program Implementation, including identifying appropriate supply chains, data sourcing, and regional implementation.
• Developing and implementing a freight fluidity performance management framework for U.S. ports for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) (performing Mobile, Alabama, port demonstration).

Project Type

Research

Period of Performance

Varies by activity/sponsor

Project Site(s)

Various locations and geographic scales, including: Texas (statewide); Maryland (statewide); and Mobile, Alabama (port)

Website

https://cattworks.org/projects/freight-fluidity/

Contact

Bill Eisele
Principal Investigator
Texas A&M University
(979) 845-8550
Bill-Eisele@tamu.edu

Challenges Addressed

• Freight mobility
• Resilence/reliability of supply chains
• Performance measures of freight networks and supply chains

Expected Outcomes

Frameworks and implementation/demonstration of freight fluidity concepts at the regional (local) and statewide levels with an eye toward national/international supply chain implementation.

Stakeholder Involvement

Texas Department of Transportation (statewide/border), Maryland State Highway Administration, FHWA, and USACE.