Best Types of Commodity Flow Data for Freight, Railroad, and Ports and Waterways Studies

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

View/Download File

Persistent link to this item

Statistics
View Statistics

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Title

Best Types of Commodity Flow Data for Freight, Railroad, and Ports and Waterways Studies

Published Date

2023-02

Publisher

Minnesota Department of Transportation

Type

Report

Abstract

The understanding of freight movement is critical to economic development and competitiveness and to make decisions regarding the transportation system. Despite the increased interest in freight planning and modeling, freight data are limited in availability and granularity, and the existing sources are incomplete or outdated. This research analyzes various types of public and proprietary freight databases to determine which are most helpful for planning, programming, and designing future infrastructure on the truck, rail, air, and waterway networks within Minnesota and surrounding states. There are some comprehensive multimodal freight databases that provide different levels of data granularity. These are typically complemented with other data sources that are specific to a transportation mode. We also interview stakeholders involved in freight planning in Minnesota to identify data gaps and capture current and future data needs. Important needs include (i) mode specific freight data, especially for waterways and ports and air freight; (ii) equity considerations in freight transportation; and (iii) understanding the relationship between freight transportation and climate change. Additional freight data are much needed overall to inform economic development and funding prioritization, as well as to evaluate and minimize supply chain disruptions.

Description

Related to

Replaces

License

Collections

Series/Report Number

Funding information

Isbn identifier

Doi identifier

Previously Published Citation

Other identifiers

Suggested citation

Fonseca, Camila; Zeerak, Raihana; Napoline, Kimberly; Zhao, Jerry. (2023). Best Types of Commodity Flow Data for Freight, Railroad, and Ports and Waterways Studies. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/253754.

Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.