A Concept for a National Freight Data Program Special Report 276 (2003) / Chapter Skim
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B Review of Freight Survey Collection Techniques
B Review of Freight Survey Collection Techniques
Pages 88-96
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From page 88... ...
Transportation planners in both the public and the private sectors need to understand the dynamics of freight if they are to wisely allocate resources designed to improve the efficiency and safety of freight movements. These movements are considerably more complex than person travel in urban areas and change far more quickly than do commuting patterns.
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From page 89... ...
Thus, what they know about it must come from direct observation, usually in the form of user and carrier surveys. The sheer complexity and number of agents involved in even a smaller supply chain make a single survey process that would illuminate all parts of it impossible to design.
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From page 90... ...
Both can be supplemented with information from carrier surveys. These surveys are focused on the physical agents of distribution, the business patterns of which are felt in terms of flows on the transportation network.
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From page 91... ...
Food companies produce food, for example, and paper is produced by paper companies. Thus, linking the output of firms segmented either by commodity produced or their industrial classification is typically a simple exercise.
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From page 92... ...
Finally, in a supply chain environment many shippers produce only parts of a larger product, one that may undergo several incremental stages of assembly before it is ready for delivery to the final consumer. Many planners wishing to better understand freight have advocated surveying receivers in addition to or instead of shippers.
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From page 93... ...
Many of these goods are produced abroad, and their largest concentration in the domestic supply chain occurs in distribution centers close to the point of final consumption. It should finally be noted that the distinction between shipper and receiver is perhaps unhelpful and leads to disjointed data collection efforts.
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From page 94... ...
These limitations must be overcome through a combination of nonintrusive survey methods and careful recruiting, because distribution centers are rapidly becoming the most efficient place to gather information about freight movements and their metamorphosis during the movement from initial production to final consumption. CARRIERSURVEYS Capturing data about shipments while in transit is perhaps the easiest and least expensive way to gather information about them.
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From page 95... ...
From an efficiency and cost standpoint, distributor surveys would be superior in all cases except for single shipments from original producer to final consumer. While common in the agriculture and fossil-fuel segments of the economy, such simple shipments appear to be rare in the larger realm.
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From page 96... ...
Using each survey program to focus on the commodities that are concentrated in its domain during shipment is the only way to paint a lucid and robust picture of freight flows. Using a combination of survey programs will complicate the overall freight data collection and summarization process.
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