Freight Movement: Challenges and Solutions

The freight industry has been revolutionized with the “intermodal” nature of transportation. Goods travel by water, air, rail and highways both internationally and domestically to provide consumers with a variety of choices.

The plus side is an expanding economy, lower prices of goods and job creation. But once that shipment of goods moves from the ports into local communities, the benefits come at the cost of congestion, safety and air quality concerns, constrained highway, railroad and port systems, and maintenance costs. With freight movement expected to double over the next 10 years, these are just some of the major concerns that need to be addressed nationally with the next transportation bill.

NLC First Vice President Ron Loveridge, mayor of Riverside, Calif., testified in front of the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in August 2008 on how his city has been directly impacted by the rail traffic moving from the ports to the rest of the nation.

“Our location within the Southern California goods movement network makes Riverside 'ground zero' for train/automobile interaction, which creates problems unique to the city and our residents,” Loveridge testified. “On a daily basis, as many as 128 trains move through the City of Riverside. As a result, the residents of Riverside currently encounter the crossing gates down for an average of three hours per day and as long as six hours per day at each of the 26 priority at-grade crossings in the city. These blockages of major thoroughfares directly impact public safety emergency response times, vehicular safety, air quality and economic development.”

A variety of solutions are starting to crop up at the local level as local governments feel the pressure to tackle the problem on their own. Public and private engagement seems to be the first step for several cities as they form task forces or advisory committees made up of stakeholders to share information and discuss policy changes. Through these groups, cities have developed solutions such as reserving on-street parking for commercial vehicles, requiring new developments to provide off-street loading areas for trucks, providing better signage for allowed and prohibited truck routes and incentivizing off-peak deliveries in lieu of restricted delivery hours.

Outside of the realm of logistical and policy changes is an opportunity to innovate how cities actually move freight through their communities. Stephen R. Roop, assistant agency director at the Transportation Safety Center and Multimodal Freight Transportation Programs at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) says, “Freight transportation has effectively consumed the excess capacity on our highways and railways and has done so with systems that rely on an increasingly scarce and price-volatile energy source — oil. We have to come to terms with the realization that new systems and approaches will be required to meet the growing demand for low-cost, reliable goods movement. A new generation of green freight transportation systems is being developed to meet this need and the marketplace will determine the form these systems take and timing of their introduction.”

TTI has developed a system called the Universal Freight Shuttle (UFS), which combines the best features of trucks and railroads with technology and robotics, all while maintaining an environmentally sound operating system. UFS is geared to significantly reduce the number of long-haul, heavy-duty diesel trucks on the highway, increasing safety and reducing air pollution. The actual UFS consists of an electric-powered, automated vehicle that travels on specially designed guide-ways and are large enough to move standard size freight container. The UFS has been in the design phase for eight years and has engaged key stakeholder groups such as federal and state departments of transportation, freight transportation companies, shippers and consumers as it has been developed. 

Stephen Roop will be presenting this solution along with other federal, state and local policy changes that would be needed to implement this at a workshop at NLC’s Congress of Cities and Exposition in San Antonio on Thursday, November 12, from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Additional panel participants include Councilmember David Sander, vice chair of NLC’s Transportation and Infrastructure Services Policy and Advocacy Committee and Judge John Thompson from Polk County, Texas, to talk about some of the local and regional challenges and solutions they have developed.