Publications

Summary:
This paper describes commercial vehicle delay, transportation patterns and the commodity profile at the Western Cascade Gateway, the main border crossing between Southwest British Columbia, Canada, and Northwestern Washington, United States.

Summary:
This article describes the promise of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in transportation-related applications. Small UAVs are increasingly affordable, easy to transport and launch, and can be equipped with cameras that provide information usable for transportation agencies. Potential uses of UAVs include accident scene photography, surveying, security inspections, construction data collection, and monitoring the condition and congestion of roadways.

Summary:
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a model-based approach to quantify where, and in what form, energy and materials are used in industrial production. The “life cycle” refers to the production of raw materials for fuels, infrastructure and energy conversion equipment, use, maintenance, after life options, and relevant health and social factors. This is sometimes referred to as a “cradle to grave” approach when assessing environmental impacts.

Summary:
This life cycle assessment case study puts the supply chain contribution of transportation to greenhouse gas emissions in context with other contributors using American wheat grain as a representative product. Multiple locations, species and routes to market are investigated.

Summary:
A series of field operational tests completed by Washington State over a 10-year period has shown that electronic container door seals (E-seals) can increase the efficiency and improve the security of containerized cargo movement. Universal use of E-seals, along with the associated infrastructure, could provide notable improvements in security, container tracking, and transaction cost reductions.

Summary:
The economic viability and well-being of Washington State is significantly influenced by the freight transportation system serving the region.

Summary:
International land ports of entry are unique transportation bottlenecks in the North American transportation system and present interesting statistical analysis problems. At the Pacific Highway port-of-entry, located between Surrey, British Columbia and Blaine, Washington, commercial vehicles have experienced crossing times of two hours or more. To address this, the crossing has a dedicated lane for users that comply with certain security procedures under the Free And Secure Trade program.

Summary:
Intra-industry trade (IIT) occurs when trading partners import and export similar products. A high volume of IIT of horizontally differentiated goods implies a deep level of regional integration, stable regional trading patterns, and potentially significant consequences from border delay. In this paper, trade between Washington State and British Columbia, Canada (the Cascade gateway), is compared with trade between Michigan State and Ontario, Canada (the Great Lakes gateway).

Summary:
This paper summarizes a broad literature review on system resilience. After these interpretations of resilience are considered, a definition of resilience in the context of freight transportation systems is provided.

Summary:
Variable service times at vehicle processing facilities (borders, weigh stations, landside marine port gates) cause transportation planning challenges for companies that regularly visit them. Companies must either build more time into their schedules than is necessary, and therefore underutilize their equipment, or risk missing delivery windows or exceeding hours of service regulations, actions that can result in fines, lost business opportunities, or other logistical costs.

Summary:
In this paper we present a profile of US/Canada border operations in the Western Cascadia Region, which lies between the Greater Vancouver and Puget Sound megacities. We show how this border is distinct from the more commonly discussed US/Canada border between New York, Michigan, and Ontario, in that commodities are typically less time sensitive, and a larger proportion of trips are made intra-regionally. Border procedures are described, as well as current programs for expedited crossings.

Summary:
The proposed research will address an emerging need by local, state and regional transportation planners and policymakers to better understand the transportation characteristics, functions and dynamics of ocean port-to-handling facility and handling facility-to-final market freight movements. The research will also address a gap in the academic literature for freight transportation models that capture underlying economic forces.

Summary:
The Clean Trucks Program is a Clean Air Action Plan initiative currently being adopted by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This paper examines each of the Clean Trucks Program’s current requirements and estimates the impact on terminal operations. Using terminal operations data supplied by three terminal operating companies, we conduct a simple queuing analysis and present a regression model which allow us to consider the potential impact of the policy changes.

Summary:
This paper discusses the transport of containers between the Port of Prince Rupert and the hinterland. The result of several data collection and analysis efforts, we present a set of findings regarding the role Prince Rupert might play in North American transportation, and the particular strengths or weaknesses of this facility. In the short term, there will be no facilities for container rehandling in Prince Rupert.

Summary:
This report presents a commercial vehicle profile of transportation patterns and a commodity profile of the primary border crossing along the Western Cascade border region of southwest British Columbia, Canada, and northwest Washington, United States, in particular the corridor between the urban areas of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Washington.