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21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies
Table of Contents

Freight and Land Use Travel Demand Evaluation: Final Report

Appendix C: Freight/Land Use Travel Demand Evaluation Literature Review
Section 4: Key Takeaways

Based upon the findings of the literature review, the following key takeaways were identified.

Strengths, Existing Practice, and Context

QRFM has served as a foundational document in the freight transportation community. Following the 2007 release of QRFM, a series of syntheses, released between 2008 and 2010, focused on applications such as freight travel forecasting. These syntheses formed the basis for later NCHRP reports identified as additional foundation literature. During the next wave of research conducted as part of SHRP2 C20 (between 2012 and 2016), there was a shifting emphasis toward land use and demographic-sensitive context as it relates to freight and goods movement. Understanding this evolution in research and practice helps to show how the outputs of this project can lead to new developments as practitioners are engaged. This can also offer a good model for recommendations from this project.

A subsequent output of SHRP2 C20 research has been a comprehensive and succinct list of needs by freight travel demand users and those who make decisions related to freight, including:

  • Standardized data sources with common definitions
  • Statistical sampling of truck shipments
  • Methods for surveying businesses to obtain local FTG rates, including use of technology such as Global Positioning Systems and mobile apps
  • Standardized analytic tools and applications
  • Inclusion of behavior-based elements in freight models
  • Truck touring models for urban goods delivery
  • Data development to understand the nature, volume, and trends of intermodal transfers
  • Industry-level freight data development at a subregional level and within urban areas
  • Incorporation of local land use policies and controls for better local forecasting accuracy
  • Development of a correlation between freight activity and various economic influences and macroeconomic trends
  • Better accuracy of freight forecasts
  • Development of a process to routinely generate new data sources and problem-solving methods
  • Use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) resources to generate data for freight modeling
  • Development of a universal multimodal, network-based model for various geographic scales
  • Development of benefit-cost analysis tools that go beyond traditional financial measures
  • Development of funding assessments resulting from freight forecasts
  • Creation of technical guidance and support toolkits to support the infrastructure design process
  • Development of knowledge and skills among the freight planning community as a foundation for improved analysis

Challenges and Gaps

General

A lot of information exists on data gaps, but less in terms of how to close the gaps. Gaps include:

Data Availability Challenges

There are several challenges related to data availability including:

  • Developing commonly sourced data sets (i.e., commodity flow survey, freight analysis framework, etc.) on smaller geographic scales
  • Improving the availability and visibility of data among agencies and between the public and private sectors
  • Refining supply chain management data to portray the industry practices more accurately
  • Local context incorporation - There is a general lack of local detail related to the generation of freight activity, which hinders local efforts to effectively plan for first- and last- mile freight movements. Understanding how land use and economic decisions can affect freight activity how to be more sensitive to freight needs is important for addressing goods movement in communities.
  • More robust modeling tools - Freight models are typically based on population, employment, and industry-level forecasts; however, little to no consideration is given to land use and economics factors. There is also a need for a more universal open-source freight modeling tool as many users currently must piece together data or improvise with data and resources available.

Issues with QRFM

  • The QRFM was developed a decade ago. It is outdated and needs updating to capture changes in the transportation and freight industries. While gaps in freight data still exist, there have been significant strides in data collection methods and sources as well as technological advances in the overall freight industry.
  • The QRFM is oriented toward Federal, State, and metropolitan agency audiences, but the concepts of freight-efficient land uses and context-sensitive trip-generation are valuable to local agencies with land use planning and zoning authority. The needs of these local users are quite different due to the geographic scale and varying priorities they work with. As such, it is important to rethink the audience of the QRFM and who uses the manual on a day-to-day basis.
  • Since the last QRFM, personal behaviors have changed. The world we live in now is more connected than ever. Additionally, people have started to focus more on the user-experience of products; in other words, making products that connect to users rather than simply look good or read well. The current QRFM exists as a PDF on a website; it is straightforward and to the point. However, this is not a user-friendly format and can be quite tiresome to peruse when a user is quickly looking for a certain topic.

Opportunities

Although there are limited identified solutions to the gaps/challenges listed above, opportunities to address the gaps abound:

Potential Development of the QRFM Update

The QRFM is updated on a roughly 10-year cycle. For the next update it is important to think about how the QRFM user base has changed or will change over the next ten years, as well as the manual’s overall format and content. It can be difficult to identify ways to effectively document the state of the practice in an environment where techniques are constantly evolving. However, with the right input, particularly from a newly defined user base, the manual can affect the direction of the freight transportation industry and freight planning practices. An updated, more streamlined manual that is graphically rich will help users more quickly understand what is important to them and identify topics of highest personal relevance.

FTG Software

FTG software is now under development and will likely aid in several freight problem areas, such as:

  • Infrastructure management (level of service, volume/capacity ratios, identification of freight generators)
  • Truck touring models for urban goods delivery and service trips
  • Parking/unloading areas management (parking analysis-needs and availability)
  • Vehicle-related strategies (emissions and air quality)
  • Traffic management (congestion analysis)
  • Logistical management (origin-destination analysis, time-of-day analysis)
  • Freight demand/land use management (FTG locational analysis, congestion, mobility)

However, the exact opportunities from the software are unclear as it is not yet available online. As such, it is difficult to determine the actual opportunities of the software and how it will play a role in addressing identified gaps related to trip generation.

Information Exchange Partnerships

The QRFM has existed as a handy, yet somewhat stand-alone resource on many practitioner bookshelves. The potential for developing a new product format can be linked with fostering information exchange between practitioners and researchers. This will support knowledge transfer to the practitioner community and solicit feedback that can help educators and researchers to manage and advance the state of the practice. These potential partnerships were explored as part of the peer exchange process of the study.

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