National Academies Press: OpenBook

Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems (2009)

Chapter: Chapter 1 - Introduction

« Previous: Summary
Page 2
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14332.
×
Page 2
Page 3
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14332.
×
Page 3

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

21.1 Research Need The national freight transportation system is essential to the global economy, providing the gateways for our inter- national trade, the corridors connecting our domestic markets, and the activity hubs that serve our population and indus- trial centers. With shrinking transportation funding sources, shifts in global trade, and continued population growth, our transportation system capacity has not kept pace with demand. This imbalance has resulted in increased conges- tion and delay on and at our transportation corridors and hubs. As our transportation system becomes less and less reliable, our businesses become less competitive, resulting in increased costs of our goods and services and an overall degradation of our quality of life. Public and private stake- holders alike recognize the need for new freight transportation investment strategies at local, regional, state, multi-state, and national levels. Over the past few decades, public agencies and private busi- nesses have begun working to address these challenges jointly. Public agencies have developed a better understanding of the freight transportation system and its needs, and private industry has become more knowledgeable about trans- portation planning programs. This has led to the develop- ment of advisory groups, shared funding programs, and new partnerships. Bringing these public and private stakeholders together for a common purpose has led to increasing numbers and types of institutional arrangements designed to sup- port freight mobility needs. These arrangements have expe- rienced varying degrees of success, providing lessons learned that can guide the activities of new, expanding, or evolving freight arrangements. Considerable freight-related research exists; however, limited work has been undertaken that looks specifically at the develop- ment of institutional arrangements in the freight transportation system. The need is clear—the future of our transportation system will depend on our ability to develop partnerships that promote the importance of freight, leverage our financial resources, and identify and invest in agreed-on priorities while providing calculable benefits for all partners. 1.2 Research Objective Freight transportation policies, plans, and programs have ad- vanced significantly over the last few decades. A growing under- standing of the importance of freight movement to the nation’s economy has led to increased interest in planning and funding freight improvements and initiatives by public-sector agencies. Unfortunately, good intentions often have been stymied by institutional obstacles that appear insurmountable. In the goods movement industry in particular, the wide variety of private-sector representatives (e.g., carriers at the local, regional, and national levels; shippers and receivers of freight; and unions) and public-sector agencies (e.g., ports, airports, roadway operators, and regulatory agencies) provide the opportunity to collaboratively address many critical issues, such as state and national truck motor vehicle certifications, congestion along key goods movement corridors, truck rest stops, railroad crossing concerns, conflicts between goods and passenger movement vehicles and flows, and safety and secu- rity. Collaboration works best when (1) institutional relation- ships among the public- and private-sector participants are strong; (2) there is a sense of mutual benefit among the par- ties; and (3) efforts are not only made to streamline regulation or expedite the flow of goods, but are reflective of both public- and private-sector needs and concerns. There are several models of successful institutional arrange- ments in freight transportation. In many instances, success has come from integration and inclusion of freight consid- erations in existing metropolitan planning organization (MPO), state, and Federal transportation programs. Any successful freight program, from a local planning study to a major system development and deployment, relies on the C H A P T E R 1 Introduction

establishment of effective institutional arrangements that define roles and responsibilities, legal authority, funding allocations, and more. Freight system investments require the involvement of multiple partners, often representing a mix of public, private, and quasi-public entities that oper- ate on vastly different business models and planning hori- zons. Often, projects span multiple jurisdictions and have multiple funding sources that must be merged effectively. These characteristics can challenge available institutional frameworks, leading to the need for new funding and con- tracting mechanisms, expanded use of public-private partner- ships, and more effective development and use of multi-state coalitions. As defined by NCFRP The objective of this project is to describe successful and prom- ising institutional arrangements for improving freight move- ment, now and in the future. To achieve this objective and provide freight practitioners with a useful tool, the work plan was designed to 1. Describe successful and promising institutional arrange- ments for improving freight movement, now and in the future; 2. Develop a resource guide that will help agencies and indus- try representatives as they work together to invest in and improve the freight transportation system; and 3. Define an implementation plan to facilitate effective use of the resource guide. Key elements of the work plan included • Definition and preliminary categorization of institutional arrangements, • A literature search on diverse set of existing institutional arrangements, • A stakeholder workshop, • Follow-up interviews and case study development, • Identification of best practices and key challenges and development of guidelines, and • Resource documentation and dissemination. 1.3 Organization of the Report The rest of this report consists of the following: • Chapter 2, Overview of Institutional Arrangements, defines an institutional arrangement, summarizes the data collec- tion and research activities, and explores various ways of evaluating institutional arrangements. • Chapter 3, Institutional Arrangement Types, categorizes and describes the range of institutional arrangements that exist today in the freight transportation system. • Chapter 4, Guidelines for Establishing Freight Institutional Arrangements, provides specific guidelines for each type of arrangement. • Chapter 5, Application of Guidelines, provides recom- mended steps for the effective use of the guidelines. • Appendixes and supporting materials are provided on the enclosed CD-ROM and are available for download from the TRB website (www.trb.org). 3

Next: Chapter 2 - Overview of Institutional Arrangements »
Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 2: Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems explores successful and promising institutional arrangements designed to improve freight movement. The report examines 40 guidelines, reflecting lessons learned from existing arrangements, that are designed to help agencies and industry representatives work together to invest in and improve the freight transportation system.

Appendices, consisting of a literature review, workshop material, detailed case studies, and interview guide, contained on a CD-ROM (CRP-CD-72), which accompanies the printed version of the report and is available for download as an ISO image online.

Links to the ISO image and instructions for burning a CD-ROM from an ISO image are provided below.

Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image

Download the .ISO CD-ROM Image

(Warning: This is a large and may take some time to download using a high-speed connection. Any software included is offered as is, without warranty or promise of support of any kind either expressed or implied. Under no circumstance will the National Academy of Sciences or the Transportation Research Board (collectively “TRB”) be liable for any loss or damage caused by the installation or operation of this product. TRB makes no representation or warranty of any kind, expressed or implied, in fact or in law, including without limitation, the warranty of merchantability or the warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, and shall not in any case be liable for any consequential or special damages.)

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!