In recent public policy debates, much emphasis has been placed on proposals to shift freight from highways to rail. This emphasis is based on goals of reducing emissions and highway congestion. However, prudent planning requires an understanding of the basics of mode choices, what could change those choices, and what the impacts will be. The TRB National Cooperative Freight Research Program's NCFR...

Guidance to public and private stakeholders on mitigating and adapting to logistical disruptions to supply chains resulting from regional, multi-regional, and national adverse events, both unanticipated and anticipated, is provided in  NCFRP (National Cooperative Freight Research Program) Research Report 39: Freight Transportation Resilience in Response to Supply Chain Disruptions . The repor...

TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Research Report 38: Guide for Conducting Benefit-Cost Analyses of Multimodal, Multijurisdictional Freight Corridor Investments explores how to conduct benefit-cost analyses (BCAs). A BCA is an analytical framework used to evaluate public investment decisions including transportation investments. BCA is defined as a collection of methods a...

TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Research Report 37: Using Commodity Flow Survey Microdata and Other Establishment Data to Estimate the Generation of Freight, Freight Trips, and Service Trips: Guidebook provides policy makers with improved establishment-level models that estimate the Freight Trip Generation (FTG), the number of vehicle trips produced and attracted at a g...

TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 36: Enhancing Sleep Efficiency on Vessels in the Tug/Towboat/Barge Industry provides best practices to improve an operator's sleep and reduce operator fatigue in the United States inland waterway industry, including the use of anchor-sleep/nap-sleep strategies. NCFRP Report 36 identifies and describes the metrics that could be used...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCFRP) Report 35: Implementing the Freight Transportation Data Architecture: Data Element Dictionary provides the findings of the research effort to develop a freight data dictionary for organizing the myriad freight data elements currently in use. A product of this research effort is a web-based freight data element dictionary hosted by the U.S...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 34: Evaluating Alternatives for Landside Transport of Ocean Containers explores a method for evaluating alternatives to diesel trucks for ocean container transport to or from deep-water ocean ports and inland destinations within 100 miles.

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 33: Improving Freight System Performance in Metropolitan Areas: A Planning Guide outlines potential strategies and practical solutions for public and private stakeholders to improve freight movement system performance in diverse metropolitan areas. The report includes links to an Initiative Selector tool to aid in the selection of ...

TRB’s National Freight Cooperative Research Program (NCFRP) Report 32: Integrating MTS Commerce Data with Multimodal Freight Transportation Performance Measures to Support MTS Maintenance Investment Decision Making investigates the feasibility of evaluating potential navigation operation and maintenance projects on the Marine Transportation System (MTS) as they relate to both waterborne commerce a...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 31: Incorporating Truck Analysis into the Highway Capacity Manual presents capacity and level-of-service techniques to improve transportation agencies’ abilities to plan, design, manage, and operate streets and highways to serve trucks. The techniques also assist agencies’ ability to evaluate the effects of trucks on other modes of...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 30: Making U.S. Ports Resilient as Part of Extended Intermodal Supply Chains focuses on identifying and elaborating on the steps needed to coordinate freight movements through ports in times of severe stress on existing operating infrastructures and services. This report builds on NCHRP Report 732: Methodologies to Estimate the Eco...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 29: Making Trucks Count: Innovative Strategies for Obtaining Comprehensive Truck Activity Data develops and assesses strategies for obtaining comprehensive trucking activity data for making more informed public policy decisions at the national and regional levels.

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 28: Sustainability Strategies Addressing Supply-Chain Air Emissions identifies potential strategies for accelerating environmental improvement, enhancing performance, and promoting social responsibility of supply chains. The report is intended to help improve decision makers’ understanding of the impact of environmental policies an...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 27: Web-Based Screening Tool for Shared-Use Rail Corridors describes a tool designed to help perform preliminary feasibility screening of proposed shared-use passenger and freight rail corridor projects. The web-based screening tool  described in the report is available on the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration website.

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 26: Guidebook for Developing Subnational Commodity Flow Data explores how state departments of transportation and other subnational agencies can obtain and compile commodity flow data. The Guidebook contains descriptions of existing public and private commodity flow data; standard procedures for compiling local, regional, state, an...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 25: Freight Data Sharing Guidebook provides a series of guidelines for sharing freight data, primarily between public and private freight stakeholders. The report identifies barriers and motivators to successful data sharing, offers guidelines for freight data sharing, and provides two successful case study examples. The report als...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 24: Smart Growth and Urban Goods Movement identifies the interrelationships between goods movement and smart growth applications, in particular, the relationship between the transportation of goods in the urban environment and land-use patterns. The report is designed to help promote a better understanding of urban goods movement d...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 23: Synthesis of Freight Research in Urban Transportation Planning explores policies and practices for managing freight activity in metropolitan areas. The primary focus of the report is on “last-mile/first-mile” strategies, but it also addresses strategies affecting environmental issues and trading hubs or nodes. The research used...

TRB’s National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Report 22: Freight Data Cost Elements identifies the specific types of direct freight transportation cost data elements required for public investment, policy, and regulatory decisionmaking. The report also describes and assesses different strategies for identifying and obtaining the needed cost data elements.

TRB’s National Freight Cooperative Research Program (NFCRP) Report 21: Handbook on Applying Environmental Benchmarking in Freight Transportation explores how benchmarking can be used as a management tool in the freight and logistics industry to promote environmental performance. The report provides a step-by-step overview of the benchmarking process and describes a framework for applying this...