Analyzing and Quantifying the Impact of Congestion on LTL Industry Costs and Performance in the Portland Metropolitan Region

Recent surveys of Portland based company managers clearly indicates that the manufacturing, service, distribution, retail, and wholesale economic sector are increasingly affected by the growing congestion in the Portland metropolitan region (ERDG, 2005, ERDG, 2007) . Unreliable and increased travel times shrink the distribution radius of existing operations and reduce the operational efficiency of drivers and vehicles. Even though there is a clear consensus regarding the negative impacts of congestion, the quantification and measurement of these impacts in distribution logistics is a difficult task due to the lack of detailed routing data. Confidentiality issues are usually an insurmountable barrier that…

Recent surveys of Portland based company managers clearly indicates that the manufacturing, service, distribution, retail, and wholesale economic sector are increasingly affected by the growing congestion in the Portland metropolitan region (ERDG, 2005, ERDG, 2007) . Unreliable and increased travel times shrink the distribution radius of existing operations and reduce the operational efficiency of drivers and vehicles.

Even though there is a clear consensus regarding the negative impacts of congestion, the quantification and measurement of these impacts in distribution logistics is a difficult task due to the lack of detailed routing data. Confidentiality issues are usually an insurmountable barrier that precludes the collection of detailed and complete freight data. Understandably, companies are unwilling to disclose any type of information that might be used by competitors or may infringe customers’ rights regarding privacy, proprietary data, or security.

Unique to this research proposal is the close collaboration between a major LTL operator in the Portland region and Portland State University. Unlike most freight and trucking congestion studies based on aggregate measures, disaggregated dispatching and actual GPS fleet route data sets will be available for study in this research.  The main objectives of this research project are: (a) to understand the impact of urban congestion on commercial vehicle fleets, (b) to quantify and discriminate between the impacts of recurrent and non-recurrent congestion on fleet operations, (c) to study how adverse weather conditions compound the negative impacts of congestion, and (d) to provide congestion performance measures at a network level.