Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion--Final Report and Guidebook (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion
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C O N T E N T S G-1 Introduction G-1 1.1 Rail Freight as a Solution to Congestion G-3 1.2 Objective and Organization of this Guide G-7 Background: Context for Rail Freight Planning G-7 2.1 Rail Freight Planning and Policy Issues G-11 2.2 Diversion Obstacles G-14 2.3 Diversion Levers G-16 2.4 Examples of Rail Freight Solutions G-20 Guidelines for Preliminary Evaluation of Alternatives G-20 3.1 The Three Phase Approach G-21 3.2 The Five Steps for Preliminary Screening G-45 3.3 Further Steps for More Detailed Assessment G-47 Guidelines for Public-Private Dialogue G-47 4.1 Cooperation First G-52 4.2 Conflict Resolution G-55 4.3 Distribution of Labor G-56 4.4 Institutional Development G-61 4.5 Designing Transactions G-68 4.6 Winning Support G-73 Methods for Detailed Analysis G-73 5.1 Assess Congestion Levels and Reduction Needs G-77 5.2 Identify Carrier Cost and Service Levels G-84 5.3 Analyze Overall Logistics Costs G-89 5.4 Estimate Truck to Rail Diversion G-92 5.5 Calculate Traffic & Economic Benefits G-103 5.6 Representation of Benefit-Cost Findings G-112 Additional Resources
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Freight movement and truck traffic are growing at a faster rate than passenger movement and car traffic on highways. Finally, some policy makers see rail freight as an economically viable and sustainable alternative to intercity truck freight, while the rail option for intercity passenger movement usually requires subsidies.
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Situations Where Rail Freight Enhancement May be Relevant Railroads can offer a viable or potentially viable alternative to trucking in some situations, and that alternative becomes of particular interest when expanded use of rail freight can reduce either existing traffic congestion levels or needs for expanding highway capacity in the future. In general, the situations where rail freight enhancement may be most appropriate are cases where • Heavy traffic growth calls for expanding highway capacity, yet highway expansion is made impractical by high cost or engineering difficulties; • High levels of truck traffic in a corridor lead to particularly severe local congestion problems; • Problems with the rail network structure restrict the role of rail from offering a viable alternative for freight movement; • The rail network structure has at-grade crossings or other features that restrict the performance of roadways; • Freight users are too small or scattered for efficient rail use, yet consolidation of demand or other strategies could make rail service economically viable; or • The region's economic growth is or will be threatened by an overall lack of goods movement capacity.
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Public agencies, on the other hand, are oriented to the elements of infrastructure at various scales going from individual facilities to urban travel corridors, citywide networks, intercity corridors, and state or regional networks. This guide seeks to recognize the different public and private perspectives by presenting discussions of the issues, opportunities, and constraints that they are likely to encounter in seeking rail freight solutions to highway congestion.
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• Approaches for Private-Public Cooperation. Given the private ownership of many railroad and truck-rail intermodal facilities, rail freight planning must involve both the private and public sectors.
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• Level of Analytical Detail. The guide describes a "sketch planning" level of analysis that can be efficiently completed with limited information and spreadsheets to establish a rough estimate of the potential range of costs and impacts associated with rail freight options to reduce road congestion.
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provides information for readers who are not already experts on rail freight planning. It discusses the process of rail freight planning and factors affecting rail/truck diversion.
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Higher volumes of truck traffic are a serious concern to the traveling public. Real or perceived, the discomfort produced by unavoidable proximity to G-7 C H A P T E R 2 Background: Context for Rail Freight Planning
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Growth in rail can slow the advance of congestion, and, in given localities, directly relieve it, by diverting freight from the road system. When rail succeeds in winning new traffic, it does so with service that suits the competitive requirements of shipper supply chains and that boosts the efficiency of motor carriers who can employ it.
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Public advantages -- including road relief -- in this way can be brought within reach. Background: Context for Rail Freight Planning G-9
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Directions for Incorporating Rail Planning with Highway Planning What is the place for rail freight in public planning? From the conventional standpoint of highway stewardship, public agencies care about rail for its influence on road conditions.
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2. Access Limitation concerns the requirement for rail-truck intermodal operations or for transloading and drayage of carload freight, when direct rail service door-to-door is unavailable.
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Labor, power, and carrying stock also are components of capacity; shortages of qualified manpower are common in much of the freight industry and increasingly are a challenge in rail. G-12 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion iThe authors of this report conducted private studies in the mid-90's that showed this, and are aware of others also done privately that produced the same conclusion.
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The Alameda Corridor offers another perspective on the motivational component. There, the local authority purchased the right of way to be upgraded, and it bought out all of the competing routes, so as to ensure that the user railroads would not favor their own track ahead of the public facility.
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Therefore, financing agreements can be linked to steps that reduce the barriers of interoperability and institutional commitment and thus widen the market to which publicly backed rail services may appeal. – Start-up risk can be mitigated with limited-duration operating subsidies, protected by performance and marketing covenants.
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Inland ports and forward distribution programs transfer the location from which traffic is dispersed, from a gateway or production region to a spot closer to the consuming markets. The lane from that production or gateway region to the new dispersal center consolidates traffic into a dense vector, which may support trainload operations and non-stop service.
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; and 4. Enhancement of rail freight options for service to ports/terminals (e.g., State rail access programs and Inland Ports)
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If finished, the second stage would produce a 55-mile trans-urban rail corridor. • Kansas City Sheffield Flyover -- A public-private partnership of railroads and Missouri DOT funded development of 3 miles of elevated tracks in Kansas City to increase the capacity and improve the performance of a major bottleneck in the rail network.
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In effect, it extends a marine port to an off-site, inland location by providing a remote, inland multimodal distribution center for marine/rail and marine/truck transfers, with a direct rail or barge shuttle that moves cargo between ocean-going vessels at the main port and the intermodal transfer site on a frequent basis. By relocating the truck and rail distribution facilities away from the main port site, the inland port facility can reduce congestion from truck traffic in the area of the main port, reduce rail/roadway intersection delays, and remove constraints on port expansion that are attributable to truck capacity limitations.
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Background: Context for Rail Freight Planning G-19 Exhibit 2-2. Examples of Projects and Plans to Implement Rail Freight Solutions.
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In general, public agencies are looking for particular rail projects or programs that can help to relieve highway congestion. As such, there is a need for guidance in identifying the types of situations where rail might help; expected benefits associated with congestion relief; and the specific types of projects or programs that might be appropriate given local conditions.
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Screening Available Actions -- whether potentially available local actions match any of the prototype action categories for promoting rail freight use; and Guidelines for Preliminary Evaluation of Alternatives G-21 Exhibit 3-1. Major Phases of the Decision-Making Process.
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congested highways with high truck volumes and (2) local congestion related to delays at grade crossings.
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Examples of the second abound, especially in locations with recent investments in major industrial facilities that rely on large, frequent deliveries of supplies, such as automotive assembly plants and distribution centers. • Situation 3, where the rail network structure restricts performance of highways, occurs when rail facilities block logical development of the metropolitan area or disrupt the flow of local street traffic.
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• Situation 5, where freight users are too small or too scattered for efficient use of rail, occurs in many contexts including cases where local companies lack access to the rail network or there are untapped opportunities for regional warehouses or distribution centers at locations served by rail. Investments aimed at addressing the first include the many efforts to make intermodal transport cheaper, more reliable, or more accessible, all of which make rail service more convenient to shippers who lack sidings; state programs such as those in Ohio and Maine that help fund construction of rail sidings; and state programs such as those in New York and Pennsylvania that help improve the track structure or increase clearances to allow taller, longer, or heavier cars.
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Forms of short-haul service could include shuttles between ports and inland terminals or special services designed to move highway truck traffic through metropolitan areas. • Action 4 -- Improving rail service to industry, a strategy aimed at customers rather than railroads, can be a key way to encourage carload traffic.
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• Policy 7 -- Light-density line programs include public purchase or subsidy of rail lines in order to maintain rail operations, as well as investment in low-volume lines in order to improve the ability to serve customers. G-26 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Exhibit 3-6.
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Many states also have statewide models used for major highway corridors; that data can similarly be applied to calculate current and future VMT, VHT, and truck volumes on those routes. This information provides a basis for calculating current and expected future congestion for areas and corridors under base case conditions, which assume no diversion of any freight movements to rail.
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National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Report 463, National Academy Press, 2001. iiText is drawn from NCHRP Report #463; op cit.
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From the viewpoint of traffic engineering, this consideration is an important step in making more realistic traffic Guidelines for Preliminary Evaluation of Alternatives G-29
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Information on volume of truck freight is important for determining whether freight truck traffic is a significant contributor to congestion in the study area. Freight flow directions and commodity information are important because they directly affect the viability of rail freight as an alternative to trucking: some commodities moving by truck could potentially be shipped by rail, while rail might be impractical for commodities that are more fragile or time sensitive.
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This information on characteristics of freight movements will be needed in Step 4 to assess the potential for freight diversion to rail and in Step 5 to assess particular types of rail investments that could relieve congestion. In addition, the economic costs of congestion vary by type of business, so knowing the types of commodities is also important for that reason.
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If the macro analysis reveals that truck freight traffic is composed largely of "overhead" freight movements, it is unlikely that local rail investments by themselves can divert freight traffic. In these cases, a multi-jurisdictional approach with coordinated investment is required, pursued by the public agency either on a regional or corridor basis.
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"Comparison of external costs of rail and truck freight transportation," Transportation Research Part A; p.
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A geographic analysis can be used to examine the geographic patterns of truck freight flows. This information can be used to estimate the amount and direction of G-34 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Exhibit 3-10.
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These data will provide a snapshot of the direction of truck freight flows to and from the study area and will be used in Step 4 to determine whether the broad characteristics of truck freight flows make it possible for large-scale diversion to rail. The geographic analysis might indicate, for example, that truck freight flows are generally north-south while rail infrastructure goes east-west, in which case, diversion to rail would be difficult; or that truck freight flows are concentrated in two or three states currently connected to the study area by rail, in which case diversion to rail is technically feasible.
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For intermodal services, a conventional commoditybased approach to preliminary diversion assessment is limited by the source data. The Commodity Flow Survey does not sample import shipments, which account for about half of the G-36 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Exhibit 3-12.
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An intermodal capture rate can be estimated by means of a market share matrix, as shown in Exhibit 3-13. The matrix displays the average penetration rate for rail intermodal service within the market for dry van carriage.
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Step 4. Characterize Available Rail Resources Having assessed the pattern of truck and rail freight flows in Step 3, the fourth step is to identify the nature of rail lines and supporting facilities available to serve freight movements.
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Shippers who can use carload or multi-carload service typically are focused on equipment supply and low-cost transportation for higher lading weights, because performance can be slow and irregular. The time and cost challenges of handling carload traffic cars has caused this historical traffic of the railroads to contract steadily relative to unit trains and intermodal.
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Because it is the class of service most similar to standard truck service, intermodal is the type most likely to divert highway traffic on a large scale. Data on class of service offered by railroads can be assembled from sources like the Carload Waybill Sample, public information like the federal Commodity Flow Survey, commercial databases, traffic surveys, or directly from the railroads themselves.
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For areas in which short rail freight movements are unusual or unlikely, an analyst might assume that available rail resources cannot be used for intra-state movements, in which case assumptions about the percent of state demand that can be met with existing resources would be much lower. If information about local conditions is utilized properly, the general logic in Exhibit 3-15 is sound; the ability of existing supply to meet demand will depend on the intersection of the characteristics of freight traffic with the characteristics of existing rail resources.
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and (2) How much of the truck freight movements could be diverted to rail?
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Source: Calculated by the authors using data from Exhibit 3-16a and assuming average truck load of 14.8 tons Source: Forkenbrock, David, 2001.. "Comparison of external costs of rail and truck freight transportation," Transportation Research Part A, Vol.
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"External costs of intercity truck freight transportation," Transportation Research Part A; Volume 33, pp.
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This third set of calculations is the basis for the output section of Exhibit 3-19. 3.3 Further Steps for More Detailed Assessment Results of this preliminary assessment make it possible to screen situations and determine whether or not rail freight is an available and potentially feasible option to consider for highway congestion relief in that local context.
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or they may be any combination of those actions. G-46 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion
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Similarly, it is common for public organizations to have few resources devoted to freight, and fewer yet to consider railroad options. Moreover, relationships progress along an evolutionary path.
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public agencies whose relationships with their rail carriers are still maturing; (2) agencies that are further along, but want to improve their railroad dealings; and (3)
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A specific public information program jointly supported by public agencies and the private freight carriers would provide an additional platform to build confidence and prove the value of public engagement to the carrier community. A specific product such as the public information and rail impact-tracking program described above may serve as an inducement for serious, early engagement by the private freight carriers.
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Such groups typically are facilitated by public agencies, but should include sufficient private-sector leadership to be credible in the eyes of citizens and legislators, when it comes to the economic rationale for investment of tax dollars. Councils also can perform the crucial function of delivering an early reality check on the commercial attractiveness of proposals to develop or enhance rail facilities and the ability to divert highway traffic such as FAC members themselves may manage.
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For the carrier's part, public proposals should be viewed with flexibility, because there is a range of ways for the railroad to participate. At one extreme, carriers can facilitate corridor access and the development of specialized rail services that would operate with substantial autonomy and little management interaction with the main carrier.
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Six-Point Framework Formal structures for conflict resolution have evolved over the last several decades. They are used by courts around the nation and have surfaced in the planning arena in connection with interagency disagreements and public involvement.i The keystone in these structures is the techG-52 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion iFor example, the Florida High Speed Rail Authority was mandated by state statute to implement a conflict resolution process to handle disputes with environmental and growth management agencies, and with citizens.
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Guidelines for Public-Private Dialogue G-53 nique of interest-based negotiation; some classes of conflict may not be susceptible to it, but most are. In this technique, the fixed positions staked out by the parties to an argument are reformulated in terms of their underlying interests.
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The facilitators work to breed cooperation and to improve the joint structuring of decisions; they do not impose settlement on the parties. G-54 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion ivA partial list of university centers and consortia: University of Colorado, Florida State, Harvard, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers, Stanford, and Wisconsin.
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Guidelines for Public-Private Dialogue G-55 The institutional action that needs to be taken is to provide and position expert support where planners can call on it as needed. An indefinite quantities contract, sponsored by the DOT with MPO support and let to one or more consortia, is a logical method (and some states may have services on call now)
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Freight shippers and receivers, third-party logistics firms, and motor carriers also have an important stake in the success of freight planning and should likewise be engaged in the public process. Their input could be coordinated through a FAC, as earlier described.
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, there are other approaches. Indiana devotes some of its state sales tax to rail; in Oregon, a portion of lottery proceeds are set aside for non-highway transport, of which freight rail receives a segment and is eligible for more.
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At a minimum, the states and MPOs should, with the encouragement of carriers, agree on common definitions and measurement tools for evaluating rail investment proposals. Still, this does not mean that the weighting G-58 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion
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A solution would be basic instruction managed nationally, then supplemented by a longer regional course, backed by states and perhaps run through universities. The program curriculum should feature a general orientation on essential issues that influence freight railroad services, including operational, economic, and market factors.
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Multi-Jurisdictional Techniques Many proposals simply are not local. Rail networks cross jurisdictions, freight markets ignore boundaries, and trucks move everywhere.
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Collaborative steps that can be taken by carriers and public agencies include these: • States can offer incentives to local communities (such as infrastructure grants or tax incentives) to help carriers overcome the not-in-my-backyard issues that surround development of truck-generating nodes like intermodal terminals.
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G-62 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Exhibit 4-4. Transaction Factors and Considerations.
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Transit and passenger rail authorities often enjoy deeper or different political support within a metropolitan area than do freight stakeholders, which can strengthen a freight coalition. Segregation of freight traffic from neighborhoods -- through grade separation or route arrangement -- produces benefits by improving popular perceptions of safety, reducing congestion, and softening community impacts.
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The standards for cost, speed, and reliability in these markets are set by motor carriage, and they have to be matched. This will be done most often, but not exclusively, with intermodal service.
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In this respect, their specifications are like the shippers, but what truck lines want is more business and a bigger, high-service rail network to carry it. Second, rail allows more truck shipments to be handled per unit of manned motive power.
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Traditional and new G-66 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion
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Apart from proactive inclusion of carload freight in rail programs and partnerships, many of the key steps for government are in complementary land use and zoning regimes at the city or MPO level. The encouragement and retention of sidings, the provision of rail spurs into new commercial sites, industrial development in proximity to rail lines, and financial mechanisms to support these things are some steps to improve carload access.
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that it slows the growth of congestion or retards the rising incidence of trucks or that it guarantees mobility to supply chains by offering a parallel system in freight. The point is to consider the popular perceptions of a project's objectives and direct those perceptions toward what the project can finally accomplish.
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The existence of non-rail private direct investment in the intermodal sector is especially significant because of the importance of this class of service for highway traffic diversion. Moreover, while many intermodal users depend on the railway for all equipment and operations, railroads preExhibit 4-5.
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When purchasers of trainload intermodal services have resold space on trains, railroads have asked whether they are competing with themselves. The dilemma is like that of ocean lines with Non-Vessel-Operating Common Carriers (NVOCCs)
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Shippers, container lines, independent operators, and public agencies all have undertaken this to varying degrees, and motor carriers have now begun to do so. The party that is best able to accept the train start risk is the one who controls enough traffic to support the train.
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G-72 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Exhibit 4-7. Distribution of Intermodal Rail Costs by Mileage.
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5.1 Assess Congestion Levels and Reduction Needs 5.1.1 Overview The first step is to estimate levels of current and projected future traffic congestion within the study area or along the highway corridor and the extent to which truck traffic contributes to that congestion. This is necessary to establish the potential benefit that could be achieved if some portion of the truck traffic could be shifted to rail freight alternatives.
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the business costs associated with truck delay can be substantially greater than the economic value of passenger car delay. In addition, options for shifting truck traffic to other modes (such as rail)
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. NCHRP Report 463: Economic Implications of Congestion provided a full discussion of the elements of traffic congestion and alternative ways of measuring it.
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An example of that additional modeling is provided in the 2005 study, The Cost of Congestion to the Portland Region, available at http://www.portlandalliance.com/pdf/Congestion_Report.pdf. G-76 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion
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When considering rail freight solutions for traffic congestion, it becomes particularly important to be able to distinguish truck shares of traffic on the key congested areas and corridors and to forecast changes in congestion during peak periods for those areas and corridors. 5.2 Identify Carrier Cost and Service Levels 5.2.1 Overview This step identifies the carrier costs and service capabilities of rail, truck, and intermodal options for moving freight.
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Specialized trucks are used for moving automobiles, chemicals, bulk commodities, and other heavy products that might also be rail competitive. The routes taken and the miles traveled by smaller trucks might relate to the location of industrial plants, warehouses, and retail establishments, so there could be a long-term relationship between the use of rail, the location of such facilities, and the nature of local truck movements.
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While costs also vary with the specifics of the journey, trucking costs per mile are predictable. For many years, they have been on the order of $1 to $1.35 per milei for general freight moving in standard equipment for distances over 300 to 400 miles.
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Intermodal service levels are generally similar to those for truck. Additional time is required in the terminals, but trains generally can move traffic further in a day than can trucks.
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Some intermodal terminals also act as hubs where intermodal traffic is transferred between trains. The transfer operation adds to operating costs, but using hubs makes it easier to consolidate traffic and increase train frequencies in key lanes.
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For example, Chicago Metropolis 2020 has recently recommended that "intermodal bypass service should be developed to shuttle trucks 100 to 400 miles through and around the region."ii Element 3 – Unit Train Freight Movement Unit train costs are straightforward. The main cost elements are (1)
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Since terminals are usually bypassed, unit train service is reasonably reliable. Element 4 – General Freight Train Movement General freight service is used when a shipper uses one or more railcars but less than a full train.
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Service unit costing is commonly used to estimate rail costs; this technique is an example of what is currently called "activity-based costing," as it relates costs to activities or service units such as train-miles, car-miles, cars handled at yards, and ton-miles. • Rail service models.
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5.3.2 Components The analysis of logistics costs involves two elements: • Logistics Cost Analysis to estimate the total cost of shipping via applicable truck and rail freight shipping options; and • Service Features Analysis to identify differences in capacity, reliability, and other features that also affect the freight mode decisions of shippers. 5.3.3 Background Freight flows result from the interaction of many thousands of customers seeking sources for their raw materials and markets for their outputs and many hundreds of carriers offering transportation services.
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For example, rail unit trains generally have
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, which surveyed trucking companies and confirmed findings of prior studies that they place a value on freight transit time savings that is far beyond the equivalent hourly driver wage rate alone. A compendium of value placed on avoiding time delay for truck deliveries is also provided in findings from NCHRP Report 463: Economic Implications of Congestion (2001)
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of shipping by truck or rail freight, it is necessary to develop data for typical shippers who move freight over a corridor, through a city, or within a region. The database needs to have customer, commodity, and carrier characteristics for a representative set of movements.
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5.4 Estimate Truck to Rail Diversion 5.4.1 Overview This step estimates project effects on freight traffic diversion, i.e., the expected level of freight movement likely to be shifted from congested roads to new, better, or expanded rail services. It builds on the analysis of logistics cost and service quality features and tradeoffs identified in the preceding step to identify the potential for a project to allow some customers to save cost by shifting from truck to rail.
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If the estimates of logistics costs are very good and if the analysis includes all of the variables used by the shipper, then the standard deviation of the total logistics costs G-90 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion
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This approach can be useful because it allows rapid assessment of the relative merit of various changes in the freight system. 5.4.6 Required Resources To study the potential for freight traffic diversion, it is necessary to develop profiles of commodity mix, shipper/customer types, and carrier price and service characteristics.
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5.5 Calculate Traffic & Economic Benefits 5.5.1 Overview This step evaluates the benefits of projects and policies that reduce traffic congestion by reducing truck traffic in those areas and shifting it to rail freight services. There are four distinct perspectives for viewing their impacts and benefits: (1)
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For analysis of rail freight solutions to highway congestion, though, the main emphasis is on benefits from reduced highway congestion that accrue to existing highway system travelers. However, some rail improvement projects may also bring added benefit for existing rail system travelers.
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A shift of some truck traffic to rail freight can reduce traffic congestion and improve travel times for all (car and truck) travelers who remain highway users.
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In this stage, shippers benefit from the reduction in transportation costs but do not change their production or distribution processes -- they merely realize a savings on the basket of ivRAILDEC is a family of software programs designed to evaluate the economic benefits from rail-related infrastructure benefits. It is available from the Federal Railroad Administration.
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2001. National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Report 463, National Academy Press.
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Benefit. The simplest approach for estimating the total freight transportation user benefit is to start with the measure of freight carrier benefit previously defined and multiply it by a factor that accounts for the shipper benefits that are beyond carrier cost savings.
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Application of these models for highway and rail G-98 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion
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To avoid confusion here, we also refer to these total benefits as "societal benefits." Rail investments can reduce truck freight movements and thus reduce congestion, maintenance, environmental, and other costs associated with truck traffic. These societal benefits of reduced highway congestion can accrue to highway users (crash and congestion costs)
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Diverting traffic from one congested corridor to a less congested corridor, whether by truck or to rail, may increase traffic, noise, and grade crossing incidents in other areas. G-100 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Source: Reproduced in part from Addendum to the 1997 Federal Highway Cost Allocation Study Final Report; U.S.
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In rural areas, air pollution costs account for 20 to 50 percent of total societal costs; in these cases, Specific Investments (costs, type, etc.) # of trucks diverted Effects on highway performance Public $ Benefits cost, service & other factors that affect total logistics performance Mode choice Methodologies Econ Dev/ Indirect Level 1 Baseline Forecasts Logistics Model Level 2 Diversion Models Network Optimization Models Highway capacity model & network optimization Direct Benefits & Costs Jobs, Net Income Non User/ Public Benefits: DOT Impacts (Congestion, Maintenance)
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G-102 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion xxi"A Glance at Clean Freight Strategies," www.epa.gov/smartway/documents/intermodal%20shipping.pdf xxiiInvesting in Mobility, Environmental Defense Fund, 2004; p.
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The difficulties presented by these various cost and benefit considerations are that • Some of these factors can be measured in quantifiable numbers more easily than others, • Some of these factors can be monetized in dollar terms more easily than others, and • The incidence of cost and benefits for various parties can be politically sensitive. These difficulties are the major reason why four different approaches are discussed here for comparing the relative benefits and costs of rail freight projects and policies.
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There are two basic shortcomings in the use of BCA for evaluation of rail freight projects. The first is that BCA is designed to aggregate all benefits and all costs for society, without regard to their incidence.
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In the context of this guide, CEA can be applicable if the primary goals of rail freight solutions are focused solely on reducing aggregate vehicle-time or reducing emissions. However, if the analysis seeks to examine broader impacts on carriers, shippers, and the general public, then the other methods are more applicable.
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For example, an analyst could use BCA to determine which of a set of projects has a B/C ratio of greater than 1.0 G-106 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Exhibit 5-7. Using Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA)
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The following types of goals might be considered: improve mobility, improve connectivity, increase cost-effectiveness, increase energy efficiency, improve air quality, reduce resource impact, reduce noise impact, improve accessibility, reduce neighborhood impact, and improve the economy.xxiv Assessing the Distribution of Benefit and Cost Results Methods described above provide guidance on how to evaluate the overall costs and benefits associated with projects. For many rail freight or other transportation projects, however, a set of related questions is just as significant: namely the proportion of costs and benefits that accrue to different groups.
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Common objectives for private actors include maximizing sales or gaining market share when establishing a new market or product line. In the highly competitive rail sector, sales growth is often an important objective.
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, the user should include only those benefits that can be tied to increases in productivity and should ignore economic impacts that are the result of shifts in business location to the affected project area from other parts of the United States. A portion of economic impacts associated with increased trade and foreign direct investment can also be considered as net national impacts.
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As such, the analyst should G-110 Guidebook for Assessing Rail Freight Solutions to Roadway Congestion Project Benefits First Year Benefit ($) Net Present Value ($)
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5.6.6 Required Resources Portraying incidence of benefits and costs associated with rail freight solutions can go far beyond the direct project cost and the direct effect on congestion levels. It can be shown at many levels, ranging from an overall benefit/cost ratio to a detailed breakdown of the incidence of who pays the various costs and who receives the various elements of benefit.
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From page 241... ...
Shipper Needs & Structural Factors Affecting Road-to-Rail Diversion 4. Trends Affecting Traffic Congestion and Reliance on Rail Freight 5.
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Key Terms
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