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Finding the Next Generation of Freight Demand Models
Innovators vie for prize at SHRP 2 Symposium
Plan to attend the session and panel discussion on this topic at the
TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, January 23-27, 2011.
Tetsuro Hyodo, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology accepts the $1000 prize for innovation in freight demand modeling from Jim Brock, President and CEO of Avant IMC, LLC. Yasukatsu Hagino, Transport and Socioeconomic Research Division, Institute of Behavioral Sciences, was co-author of the winning presentation.
Sixteen research teams presented their ideas for improving freight demand models during a symposium held September 14-15, 2010, as part of SHRP 2 Capacity research. The focus of the research is to help bring freight modeling closer to real-world, practical, relevant outputs, and to further the science of freight demand modeling, and its practical application within planning agencies.
Freight traffic has been growing at a rate faster than passenger traffic. Freight bottlenecks are evident in all modes of transportation and have international implications. Understanding and being able to forecast freight traffic is a critical input to planning for future highway capacity.
The objective of the symposium was to identify compelling and promising areas of research that would foster eventual breakthroughs in thinking, tools, and practice to expand the application of freight-demand modeling. It was hosted by the consulting firms Avant IMC, LLC and E2 Engineering.
The symposium drew a diverse audience representing academia, public sector practitioners, and private industry, from the United States, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Norway, and Saudi Arabia. Regional as well as international models were presented in the competition meant to encourage forward-thinking innovations.
Expert judges at the event selected the presentation titled: Modeling Truck Route Choice Behavior by Traffic Electronic Application Data for its innovative approach presented by Tetsuro Hyodo, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. In close second and third places, respectively, were Dr. Steve Ritchie of University of California, Irvine, and Dr. Jane Lin of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Alan Horowitz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison making a presentation on a microsimulation of commodity flow patterns in the upper Mississippi Valley region.
The Symposium is a sub-project under a larger initiative of SHRP 2 project C20, The Freight Modeling and Data Improvement Strategic Plan, for which Gannett Fleming, Inc. is the prime contractor. The outcomes of the Symposium will become direct inputs to the overall C20 project, which will include a strategic research “road map” for improving freight demand modeling and freight data and forecasting practice over a 10-year time frame. This is expected to be completed by February 2011. This project will be the subject of a session and panel discussion at the TRB Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, January 23-27, 2011.
The project website is
www.freightplanning.com.
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