Overview of the Freight Analysis Framework Rolf R. Schmitt

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Overview of the Freight Analysis FrameworkRolf
R. Schmitt

January, 2008
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To inform policy and investment,we need to
understand

• How does the movement of freight affect the
  transportation system?
• Contributions to congestion, infrastructure wear,
  safety, the environment, revenues
• How does the transportation system affect freight
  movement?
• Expected and unexpected delay, costs
• How does the economy adjust?
• Economic productivity, shifting economic activity
  among regions, global competitiveness

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To answer these questions,we need to understand

• How much freight moves from place to place?
• Type of commodity
• Weight
• Value
• How is the freight carried?
• Mode of transportation
• Route used
• When is the freight carried?
• Season
• Time of day

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The big picture

• Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) integrates data
  from many sources into
• Region-to-region tons and value by all modes for
  shipments in 1997 and 2002, provisional estimates
  for most recent year, and forecasts through 2035
• Average number of long-distance, freight-hauling
  trucks on individual highway segments for 2002
  and 2035
• Freight Performance Measures Program
• Speeds of 400,000 trucks on 25 Interstate
  Highways by time and place
• Crossing delay at major border crossings

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What FAF does

• Estimate total volume of freight moving between
  and within FAF regions by mode and commodity
• Assign longer distance flows (among places at
  least 50 miles apart) to corridors with
  reasonable accuracy
• Forecast total volume of freight moving between
  and within FAF regions by mode and commodity
• Forecast the pressure future freight flows would
  place on the existing network

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What FAF does not do

• Estimate flows accurately for areas smaller than
  FAF regions
• Estimate flows accurately for individual routes
  with alternative paths and for places less than
  50 miles apart
• Estimate temporal variations in freight flows
• Estimate or be sensitive to costs of
  transportation
• Include effects of capacity limitations in
  forecasts of future demand
• Forecast future capacity expansion

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Bottom line

• FAF provides a comprehensive national picture of
  freight flows and a baseline forecast to support
  policy studies
• FAF indicates to states and localities their
  major trading partners and the volumes and
  sources of through traffic at the corridor level
• Local planning and project analysis requires
  supplemental data collection to provide local
  detail
• Policy analysis requires supplemental models to
  make forecasts sensitive to cost and other
  variables

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FAF versions

• Version 1 covers longer distance flows for 1998,
  2010, and 2020 by all modes except pipeline, with
  available public detail and transparency limited
  by proprietary data
• Version 2 makes the most of the 2002 Economic
  Census and is based on public data and
  transparent methods
• Version 2.2 corrects problems encountered with
  international flows the initial release of
  version 2
• Version 2.3 will include ton miles estimates and
  final adjustments to version 2
• Version 3 will be based on the 2007 Economic
  Census

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FAF details region-to-region flows

• Origin-Destination Database
• Value and weight for all domestic shipments,
  exports, and imports (excludes only
  foreign-to-foreign via US)
• 6 modes (truck, rail, water, air, intermodal,
  pipeline and unknown)
• 114 domestic CFS regions, 17 additional
  international gateways, 7 international regions
• 43 commodity classes (2-digit SCTG codes)
• Estimates for Economic Census years (1997 and
  2002), forecasts for 2010 through 2035.
  Provisional estimates for most recent year

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FAF details the 114 CFS regions

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FAF details trucks on the network

• Network Flow Database
• FAF trucks (which carry commodities between
  locations at least 50 miles apart), other trucks,
  passenger vehicles, and selected capacity
  measures for individual highway segments
• Covers over 240,000 miles of highways (46,000
  miles of the Interstate System plus 115,000 for
  balance of National Highway System, plus 47,000
  miles for balance of National Truck Network plus
  35,000 of other roads)
• Estimate for 2002, forecast of traffic with no
  change to capacity for 2035

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FAF details trucks on the network

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FAF details data sources

• Commodity Flow Survey (CFS)
• Transborder Freight Transportation Data
• Rail Waybill
• Waterborne Commerce
• Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey
• Highway Performance Monitoring System
• National Transportation Atlas Database
• Transportation Satellite Account

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FAF details relationship with CFS

• The CFS is the major data source for the FAF and
  provides domestic geography and definitions of
  modes/intermodal
• The CFS has greater commodity detail and
  identifies hazardous cargo, but does not include
  imports, shipments from farms, shipments of crude
  petroleum and municipal solid waste, etc.
• The FAF estimates tons and value of freight not
  covered by the CFS

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FAF details relationship with the Rail Waybill

• Shipments by more than one railroad are counted
  more than once in the Rail Waybill and only once
  in the FAF
• Shipments by rail and one or more other modes are
  counted as rail in the Rail Waybill and as
  Intermodal in the FAF

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FAF details relationship with Waterborne Commerce

• Shipments by a combination of deep sea, inland
  water, and intra-port are counted once in the FAF
  and multiple times in Waterborne Commerce
• Crude petroleum from off-shore platforms is
  counted as water in Waterborne Commerce and
  pipeline in FAF
• Shipments to and from Puerto Rico are counted as
  domestic in Waterborne Commerce and as part of
  Latin America in FAF

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FAF details what is intermodal?

• FAF intermodal is more than TOFC-COFC
• All 2 modal combinations reported in CFS,
  including bulk products
• Postal and courier services for packages weighing
  less than 100 pounds reported in CFS
• Excludes air-truck combination for shipments
  weighing more than 100 pounds, which is not
  separated from air only
• FAF intermodal does not include single mode
  segments of a supply chain involving multiple
  shippers
• FAF classifies intermodal shipments across
  borders with Canada and Mexico by the mode of
  entry

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FAF details what is intermodal?

• Domestic only
• 1.1 percent of tons and 8.9 percent of value in
  2002
• Domestic leg of imports and exports
• 1.3 percent of tons and 2.6 percent of value in
  2002
• Imports and exports
• 66.1 percent of tons and 45.9 percent of value in
  2002
• Domestic plus imports plus exports
• 6.6 percent of tons and 14.7 percent of value in
  2002

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FAF details relationship with GDP

• The value of FAF shipments exceeds GDP
• FAF counts each commodity move during the year
  grain worth 1,000 from farm to grain elevator
  which becomes grain worth 1,200 from elevator to
  bakery which becomes bread worth 2,000 from
  bakery to store is three tons of freight.
• GDP counts net value the value of bread consumed
  by households during the year and the value grain
  still in storage and bread still on the shelves
  at the end of the year.

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Building on FAF

• Improved forecasts
• Quick Response Freight Manual
• NCFRP project on freight forecasting
• Links to HERS and other policy models
• Improved data
• More accurate truck counts
• Links to freight performance measures and vehicle
  classification data for understanding
  consequences and temporal variation
• Local data collection for local detail

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FAF quality depends on customer feedback

• Do the estimates match observations?
• FAF databases are huge, and unexpected results do
  not appear until users dig into the details
• Most unexpected region-to-region flows have
  plausible explanations, but some flows appear to
  be improperly assigned among modes or
  commodities.
• Adjustments will be made where feasible in
  version 2.3
• Does the de facto Freight Data Architecture make
  sense?
• Architecture includes modal definitions,
  commodity classification systems, and other means
  of linking across national data sets and between
  national and local data
• NCFRP project will specify what should be in an
  architecture

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Questions and feedback

• FAFwww.ops.fhwa/dot.gov/freight/freight_analsysi
  s/faf
• Rolf Schmitt FAF design, freight modeling, and
  freight data architectureRolf.Schmitt_at_dot.gov
• Michael SprungFAF products and data
  sourcesMichael.Sprung_at_dot.gov
• Freight performance measureswww.ops.fhwa/dot.gov/
  freight/freight_analsysis/perform_meas
• Crystal JonesTravel times in freight-significant
  corridors and border crossing delayCrystal.Jones_at_
  dot.gov