Over the past years, the I‑95 Corridor Coalition has commissioned a range of freight transportation studies aimed at understanding freight movements and diagnosing freight transportation problems. The Coalition has focused on freight transportation because it is critical to the economic wellbeing of the region. The I-95 region is one of the most densely populated and economically productive areas of the United States. If the Coalition region were a separate country, it would be the third to fourth largest economy in the world. In this economy, cost-effective freight transportation is critically important in keeping down the cost of doing business and the cost of living. Without cost-effective freight transportation, the increasingly high-tech and high-value goods and services produced and traded in the region will be less competitive in national and global markets, and the economic development of the region will slow.

The Coalition’s freight studies have examined:

• Rail freight transportation through the Mid-Atlantic Rail Operations (MAROps) studies and the parallel Northeast and Southeast Rail Operations studies, which identified rail choke points across the region, developed system wide improvement programs and estimated regional benefits;
• Highway freight transportation through the Regional Bottlenecks and Mid- Atlantic Truck Operations (MATOps) studies, which identified major highway bottlenecks for freight trucks, and estimated the cost of delay to carriers and shippers;
• Motor carriers operations and safety through the Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO) initiatives, which have introduced ITS technologies to improve the screening, enforcement, and administration of truck size, weight, and safety regulations;
• Highway travel-time performance through the Vehicle Probe Data project and the Performance Measurement study, which now provide member agencies, motor carriers, and other highway users with information on travel times by time of day between cities and among freight centers across much of the corridor;
• Marine freight transportation through the Short Sea Shipping study, which examined the feasibility of increasing freight transportation capacity along the “marine highway” paralleling I‑95 by expanding intermodal barge services for containers and truck trailers; and
• The future of transportation along the corridor through the 2040 Vision study, which examined the implications of current population and economic growth trends for freight and passenger transportation demand across the corridor.

Procurement Agency:
Project Contact: Marygrace Parker
Freight, Mobility, Safety & Security Coordinator
I-95 Corridor Coalition
Phone: (518) 852-4083
E-mail: i95mgp@ttlc.net

To collate the findings and recommendations of the I 95 Corridor Coalition’s freight studies and develop freight corridor programs. The project anticipates a national emphasis on improving freight transportation and would organize the information and lessons learned from prior Coalition work to inform future transportation planning and decision-making by the Coalition and member states.

View Scope of Work

Because of USDOT’s decision to withhold funding in FY ‘11, this project was closed prior to any significant effort taking place. Tasks completed, before the project closed, included:

• Discussions on project objectives, tasks, and deliverables.
• Presentations developed for Policy & Strategic Planning Committee and the Executive Board meetings, in May and June 2011, respectively. Note that, because of a tight agenda, the presentation was not given at the Board meeting.
• Discussions on freight one-pagers, identification of potential freight mega-projects for consideration by the states, and development of freight performance measures for a few pilot freight corridors as a proof of concept.

N/A – because of funding issues, the project was closed in the early stages.