Freight Data Sharing Guidebook (2013)

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 At the turn of the 21st century, many practitioners believed that because of the Internet, new logistics technologies and sensors, and the increasing integration of supply chains, a rev- olution in freight data would occur that would provide substantial new datasets and tools to public sector freight planners. With some limited exceptions, this revolution has yet to occur. Reasons for this largely center on private sector proprietary concerns with sharing their data, as well as the public sector’s nescience to fully appreciate and adjust their data goals and needs to these concerns. Figure 1.1 provides an overview of the functional roles and perspectives of both the public and private sectors concerning freight data sharing—a key concept here is that if both sectors could be brought together in a constructive way that addressed private sector concerns, then both sectors could potentially benefit from an improved freight trans- portation system. More specifically, the functional roles and perspectives noted in the four boxes in Figure 1.1 are: 1. The freight private sector desires an improved freight transportation system (e.g., improved intermodal connectors, reduced congestion near freight facilities, and dedicated truck lanes), and expects the public sector to bear the responsibility for providing and improving this system. 2. The operations of the freight industry generate significant amounts of status, movement, supply chain, and other information which it consumes, and which typically each company or supply chain partner “stovepipes” due to competitive concerns, privacy concerns, and/or technical complexities. 3. Public sector freight planners are tasked with trying to assess freight transportation system needs and issues, but are hamstrung with limited data (e.g., surface road vehicle counts, in/ out gate information from ports, weigh-in-motion data, etc.) that does not provide much information beyond gross truck movement information. This has led to an over-reliance on modeling (i.e., using simulation tools and methodologies for estimating truck movements, intermodal movements, and commodity flows). 4. If the public sector could gain access to major private sector freight datasets, then through the assessment of “complete picture” data (e.g., the integration of freight tracking, supply chain visibility, cargo manifests, mode handoffs, etc.), better decisions could be made in regards to where to make transportation funding investments. This could lead to an improved freight transportation system. Because of the limited availability of private sector data, public sector freight planners and decision makers have traditionally relied on publicly available data (such as the DOT/ FHWA’s Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) version 3) or purchased data sets (such as IHS Global Insight’s proprietary commodity flow database TRANSEARCH) for analysis and decision support. There C h a p t e r 1 Introduction

Introduction 3 also is industry-specific data available, usually without cost, from the trade associations that represent the transportation modes such as the Association of American Railroads data on vari- ous aspects dealing with rail freight, the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) data on intermodal freight, and the Port Import Export Reporting Service (PIERS) and American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) for waterway and port data. However, all of these sources are subject to various issues related to geographic scope, industry coverage, commodity detail, and overall data compatibility which can conspire to limit their usefulness to freight planning practitioners. 1.2 Research Objectives Since the mid-2000s, freight practitioners and their private sector partners at TRB have discussed sharing of freight data, and have explored the use of public-private partnerships to improve data sharing. The private sector is the primary producer of freight data and the public sector is the key consumer, but typically private companies are less interested in public sector data than the public sector is in private data. The transportation community, in general and TRB in particular, has been working to improve freight data availability to users. TRB sponsored research and workshops in recent years to address issues involving freight data. Some of the key efforts that helped establish the ground- work for the current research are: Meeting Freight Data Challenges (July 2007) TRB workshop with a draft report—Included several discussions of public-private partnerships needed for improved data sharing. Recom- mended additional public-private and public-public partnerships to promote collection and sharing of freight data. North American Freight Transportation Data Workshop (2007) TRB workshop E-Circular 119—Provided an overview of the progress and problems associated with obtaining freight data with particular emphasis on border crossings. Noted that simply sharing practices is likely to bring value, and eventually, best practices. 1) Private Sector wants public sector to improve transporta on system 2) Because of privacy concerns, Private Sector stovepipes transporta on opera on data 3) Public Sector has limited data to assess transporta on opera ons 4) Public Sector access to Private Sector data could help improve transporta on system Figure 1.1. Freight data sharing – private and public sector roles and perspectives.

4 Freight Data Sharing Guidebook NCHRP Report 594: Guidebook for Integrating Freight into Transportation Planning and Project Selection Processes, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Wash- ington, DC, 2007—Provided guidelines for how freight projects could be implemented more easily. Contains a series of case studies that describe how state and local governments have carried out freight improvements. Path to Better Information on Freight Transportation Unpublished Draft TRB Research Circular documenting a May 19-20, 2010 Workshop, August 2010—Primary purpose was to develop a roadmap for freight data. Included presentations on freight data sharing and the problems with sharing private sector data. NCFRP Report 2: Institutional Arrangements for Freight Transportation Systems, Transpor- tation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, DC, 2009—Included descrip- tions of many local and regional projects with public and private sector stakeholders organized to help a project succeed. Freight Data Sharing Compendium: Final Report FHWA, 2011—Identification and analysis of a series of freight data sharing projects. Contains an extensive bibliography related to freight data sharing. NCFRP Report 10: Performance Measures for Freight Transportation, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, DC, 2011—Included development of freight performance measures by all modes and identification of the sources of data that could be used for continued measurement. As part of NCFRP, TRB initiated a study, NCFRP Project 31, to develop a guidebook for the sharing of freight data, particularly between the public sector and private transportation firms that generate or control the freight data. The contractor team that undertook NCFRP Project 31 identified 32 freight data sharing projects that served as case studies to specify both good and bad examples of what worked and didn’t work in facilitating the sharing of data. From its literature search and analysis, the team defined a series of barriers to data sharing and a series of motivators or best practices that helped overcome the barriers. Later in the project, the team conducted a workshop with a select group of private and public sector participants to review the barriers and motivators and suggest additional examples of freight data sharing. The results of the workshop helped the team create 28 guidelines that are included in this guidebook. 1.3 The Data Sharing Guidebook This guidebook is designed for use by data sharing partners, both as a reference manual for setting up, operating, and enhancing freight data partnerships, and also as a procedural manual to aid in developing, negotiating, and formalizing data sharing agreements. There are two primary audiences for the guidebook: • The principal audience is potential public sector practitioners (and their consultants and advisors). The guidebook defines 28 guidelines based on identified barriers to effective freight data sharing and measures that have been taken to overcome the barriers. The guide- lines should help this public sector audience establish new data sharing projects and avoid the pitfalls that past projects have experienced. • A second audience is the private sector generators of data who are primarily concerned with protecting data from their competitors or from inappropriate use in the regulatory environ- ment. The guidelines provide positive examples of how private data has been protected in past projects. This should make it easier for private parties to share data when they can see protec- tions that have been used by others.

Introduction 5 The objective of this guidebook is to provide a series of guidelines for sharing freight data, primarily between public and private freight stakeholders. The guidelines are designed in a for- mat that can be used as both a reference manual and a set of procedures for negotiating and formalizing data sharing agreements. The objective is to provide a tool that can meet the needs of a wide variety of users. The focus of this guidebook is therefore freight data from private sources, usually individual trucking companies, railroads, barge lines or private terminal operators. Experience has shown that most private sector holders of freight data have yet to be convinced of the value of shar- ing it with the public sector. Public sector users of freight data must be able to demonstrate the value of data sharing to businesses that hold the data – i.e., how it will impact their bottom line. Understanding how different groups within the transportation community will use the informa- tion is key. The guidelines in this guidebook include examples of how data has been successfully shared and protected. In Chapter 2, barriers and motivators to successful data sharing are described, with the inclusion of examples from the research. Chapter 3 describes the 28 guidelines in more detail with tables to assist the reader. Most guidelines have one or two examples included of projects that successfully did what the guideline describes. After the guideline section, Chapter 4 describes two more detailed project examples that show how a number of the guidelines are applied. Appendix A contains a table that lists the 32 projects included in the research. Appendi- ces B and C include sample nondisclosure agreements.