Skip to main content

Freight bottleneck analysis of 250 significant US highway locations

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released the findings of their annual report on congestion at freight significant highway locations.
April 30, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The 5339 American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) and the 2410 Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has released the findings of their annual report on congestion at freight significant highway locations. The research assesses the level of truck-oriented congestion at 250 locations on the national highway system to produce a congestion severity ranking for each location. This ongoing research, which is part of the Freight Performance Measures (FPM) initiative, is sponsored by FHWA's Office of Freight Management and Operations and operated by ATRI.

The FPM congestion monitoring effort combines anonymous truck GPS location information with sophisticated software applications and analysis techniques to assess the levels at which truck-based freight was affected by traffic congestion in 2010.  The result is a clear documentation of system chokepoints, especially during peak travel times in urban locations.

"The impact of traffic congestion on truck travel is well known, but rarely in a fashion where we can pinpoint projects for resource allocation and reconstruction," said Keith Bucklew, manager of Multimodal Planning for the Indiana DOT.  "The FPM programme continues to provide real value to public sector transportation managers."

Kevin Knight, chairman and CEO of Knight Transportation, commented, "Strengthening the efficiency of supply chains is becoming a critical component of U.S. economic growth.  Challenge number one is identifying the freight bottlenecks.  Fortunately, ATRI's report goes far in using real-world data to tell us where the impediments lie."

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Invitation to 16th IRF World Road Meeting
    February 29, 2012
    On behalf of the International Road Federation, I am delighted to extend a personal invitation to road industry professionals to join us in Portugal for the 16th IRF World Road Meeting.
  • Inrix Analytics announced
    May 4, 2012
    Inrix has introduced what it claims is the industry's first cloud-based data analytics services designed to improve how transportation agencies monitor, manage and measure the performance of their road networks. "Now more than ever, government agencies worldwide are being required to stretch and justify every dollar invested in transportation - being asked to do more with less," said Rick Schuman, Inrix VP of public sector.
  • IRF awards for road industry excellence
    February 15, 2012
    Eleven outstanding projects honoured for leading the way in road industry excellence. The winners of the 2010 Global Road Achievement Awards (GRAA) Competition were recognised at the 10th Annual 25 January, 2011. Eleven projects from six different countries around the world were each honoured for leading the way in excellence in a respective category of the road industry.
  • ARTBA highlights US bridge issues
    May 10, 2016
    The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) is calling for more bridge repairs in the US. There are still too many structurally deficient bridges in the country according to a recent analysis. This report states that while there were 2,574 fewer structurally deficient bridges in 2015 compared to the number in 2014, there are still 58,500 on the structurally deficient list. Worse still, at the current pace of bridge investment it will take at least 21 years before these bridges are all r