Transportation Industry

New database to improve freight movement - Technical news - Brief Article

Public Roads, Jan-Feb, 2003

In October 2002, USDOT released the Freight Analysis Framework (FAD, a database and analytical tool that will help improve planning, operations, and decisionmaking to better manage freight movement across the country.

The database is part of USDOT's efforts to manage the dramatic increase in nationwide freight movement coupled with increasing congestion and inefficiencies in transportation systems. FM analyzes data that will help decisionmakers understand the geographic relationships between domestic and international trade flows and the Nation's intermodal transportation system. By using this tool, State and local governments and the private sector can determine which transportation corridors are heavily congested, or will become so in the future, and better plan solutions to alleviate bottlenecks in the intermodal transportation network.

The FAF examines four key transportation modes: highway, railroad, water, and air. To evaluate the effect of expected volumes on the transportation network, FM includes economic forecasts for 2010 and 2020. The tool translates these economic data into transportation demand and assigns that demand to the networks.

Additional information on the Freight Analysis Framework is available from the Office of Freight Management and Operations at www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight.>