Impacts of Public Policy on the Freight Transportation System (2011) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 24-48
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Because the freight transportation system is the backbone of the U.S. economy, changes in freight movement can ripple through U.S.
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Under the old rule, drivers frequently logged time waiting in a queue as off-duty Policy Policy Category Affected Modes Hours of Service for Truck Drivers Hours of Service for Train Operators Truck Speed Limits and Governors Aircraft Fuel Tank Flammability Rules Restrictions on Locomotive Horns Safety Trucking Railroads Air cargo TWIC for Ports and Inland Towboats Alien Fingerprint Rules for Outbound Planes and Ships Security Inland towing Ports Air cargo Federal Emissions Standards for Diesel Engines California In-Use Truck Emission Standards Idling Restrictions for Trucks and Locomotives Restrictions on Port Drayage Trucks Restrictions on Disposal of Port Dredging Spoil Water Pollutant Discharge Rules for Vessels International Air Emissions Regulations for Vessels Environmental Protection Trucking Railroads Inland towing Ports State Truck Route Restrictions Local Policies to Oppose a Railroad Acquisition Truck Size and Weight Rules Operations and Maintenance Trucking Railroads Highway Infrastructure Investment Inland Waterway Infrastructure Investment Infrastructure Investment Trucking Inland towing Highway Tolls and Other User Charges Lockage Fees for Inland Waterways Peak Pricing for Port Trucks Peak Pricing for Airports Infrastructure Finance and Pricing Trucking Railroads Inland towing Ports Air cargo Table 4-1. Policy examples discussed in this section.
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26 time. This was not legal, but it prevented the waiting time from constraining their allowed driving and on-duty time.
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Although advocates of the national speed limit in 1973 estimated that it would reduce fuel consumption by 2.2 percent, widespread non-compliance resulted in fuel savings that were substantially lower, between 0.5 and 1 percent.6 Following the repeal of the national speed limit in 1994, many states have raised speed limits to 70 or 75 mph for automobiles and introduced differential speed limits for cars and trucks. These limit heavy trucks to maximum speeds that are as much as 15 mph less than automobiles (see Figure 4-1)
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Regarding mandatory truck speed governors, large trucking companies, many represented by ATA, are supportive; they argue mandatory truck speed governors improve safety, reduce fuel consumption, and lower vehicle maintenance costs. Small owner-operators represented by the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA)
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In its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FAA chose to exempt from the rule aircraft used in all-cargo operations because the potential benefits (in terms of lives saved) are far less than with passenger aircraft.
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Unexpected Impacts The research team believes that most localities enacting horn bans understood that they were incurring safety risks in order to reduce noise levels around rail lines. Even when the magnitude of the safety impacts was documented in an FRA study in 1992, none of the localities with horn bans repealed them.
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Unexpected Impacts It would have been difficult for Congress to anticipate the full impact of the TWIC requirements when it passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act in 2002, because it left the exact requirements of the rule to DHS to determine. By the time the final rules were issued, however, TSA and the Coast Guard had received nearly 2,000 written comments on the proposed rules and had also held four public meetings around the country, which together drew roughly 1,200 people.
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CSA said that, because vessel crews typically number less than 30, installing such equipment would be "cost-prohibitive." Unexpected Impacts If this policy were implemented as proposed, with the requirements extending to all crewmembers on air cargo planes and marine freight vessels, then it could result in impacts on the freight industry that were not expected by the policymakers. This is because the primary focus has been on aliens traveling via passenger airlines and cruise lines.
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Some would argue that EPA underestimates the impacts to industry, particularly the impacts of the recent truck standards on maintenance costs. Anecdotal evidence supports these claims, although there is very limited information from objective neutral parties on the issue.
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Carriers benefit from fuel savings when they reduce idling. For this reason, most large carriers, as well as the American 28American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI)
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This program is just one component of the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan, which the two ports adopted in November 2006. The Clean Truck Program is designed to replace the oldest and dirtiest of the roughly 16,000 to 18,000 trucks that visit the ports regularly and retrofit others with pollution-control equipment.
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In addition, all trucks entering port terminals must be registered in the ports' Drayage Truck Registry. Policy Impacts The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach commissioned studies to estimate the likely impacts of the Clean Truck Program on the drayage fleet, on the competitiveness of the ports, and on the freight transportation system in general.
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In addition, lower cost freight transportation may benefit local businesses that rely on trade. Deeper channels are also important for other cargoes, especially for liquid bulk (e.g., petroleum)
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EPA estimates that operating costs for a ship in a route that includes about 1,700 nm of operation in the proposed ECA would increase by about 3 percent, which would raise the cost of transport of a 20-foot-long container by about $18. Two researchers have examined the cost of reducing sulfur emissions off the West Coast of the United States only under two scenarios for sulfur content and two scenarios for the ECA distance (Table 4-3)
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Accordingly, EPA has already begun to estimate the economic impacts of an ECA designation.44 The analyses done thus far do not appear to estimate the diversion of cargo activity that could result from designation of a North American ECA. State Truck Route Restrictions Policy Description Local governments often discourage heavy trucks from traveling on their roads because of concerns about noise, emissions, and safety impacts of trucks.
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40 itself, would be unlikely to deter legislators and officials who have decided that reduced heavy-truck traffic on local roads will be of benefit. To the extent that businesses in their state or area experience higher trucking costs, it probably will not register on the political scale, unless the cost is high enough to cause firms to consider relocation.
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Bills that would liberalize the limits have been introduced repeatedly in Congress, with the support of industry groups and some states, but no major revision in federal legislation has been enacted since 1982. Studies conducted in 1990 and 2002 by TRB50a,50b,50c concluded that liberalizing size and weight regulations by allowing vehicles with greater cargo volume capacity and/or greater cargo weight capacity could reduce fuel consumption in freight transportation and also reduce total shipper costs.
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Finally, carriers could have drivers stop at state lines to readjust loads to comply with rules in the next state, but this process will also increase costs and make operations more complicated. Harmonizing the size and weight rules among the grandfathered western states would improve the economic efficiency of the freight transportation system, but such a change would also have other effects on the freight system, depending on the levels at which the harmonized standards are set.
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Significant shift of VMT from single trailers to double- and triple-trailers Mode share Percentage Mode shift not analyzed Little or no shift from rail to truck Safety Crash rate involving trucks per million truck VMT; rate of fatal truck crash per million truck VMT Net impact is unclear: reduced VMT by longer, heavier trucks would reduce crash severity and possibly number of accidents, but increase in total truck VMT would likely increase number of accidents Net impact is unclear: decrease in total truck VMT would likely reduce number of accidents; but more VMT by longer, heavier trucks would increase crash severity and possibly number of accidents Fuel consumption Gallons of diesel Higher due to increase in truck VMT Lower due to decrease in truck VMT, but partially offset by reduced fuel economy of heavier trucks Air quality Tons of emissions Higher due to increase in fuel consumption Lower due to decrease in fuel consumption Traffic operations Vehicle-hours of delay; cost of congestion Slight increase in number of vehicle-hours of delay due to increase in truck VMT Slight decrease in delay due to fewer truck VMT, but offset somewhat by effect of longer, heavier trucks on traffic flow Shipper costs Dollars Higher due to increase in cost-per- Lower due to decrease in costRailroad revenues Dollars Higher due to decreased competition from longer, heavier trucks ton-mile per-ton-mile Lower due to increased competition from longer, heavier trucks Table 4-4. Summary of impacts of harmonization of state truck size and weight rules.
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44 54Michael Bronzini, "Inland Waterways: Still or Turbulent Waters Ahead? " Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.
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Thus, in addition to increased operating costs for trucking firms, there are additional costs to society in terms of increased congestion and increased crash rates on the alternate routes. 55USDOT, FHWA, 2000 Addendum to the 1997 Federal Highway Cost Allocation Study, May 2000.
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The fuel-tax payment depends on fuel consumption and therefore will vary with the number and weight of barges. The lockage fee would vary with the number of barges and number of locks used.
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Peak Pricing for Airports Policy Description In July 2008, as part of a broader attempt to use marketbased pricing to address congestion across the U.S. transportation system, FAA amended its policy statement regarding airport rates and charges.63 According to FAA, the intent is to provide incentives to air carriers to use congested airports during off-peak hours or to use alternate airports to meet regional air service needs.
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CAA and FedEx Express asserted that higher landing fees alone would not cause all-cargo air carriers to relocate to secondary airports. They noted that the cargo carriers must consider issues of greater importance than landing fees (e.g., the airport's proximity to customers and the need for ground infrastructure such as warehouse space)
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