Publications

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:
In the face of many risks of disruptions to our transportation system, this research improves WSDOT’s ability to manage the freight transportation system so that it minimizes the economic consequences of transportation disruptions.

Summary:
This paper describes the development and use of a network model using publicly available industry data to analyze the resilience of two important Washington state industries. Modeling of freight activity in support of the potato and diesel industry in Washington state demonstrates how individual industries utilize the road network and how they are affected by a transportation disruption.

Summary:
Establishment level employment data indicate that the warehousing industry has experienced rapid growth and restructuring since 1998. This restructuring has resulted in geographic shifts at the national, regional, and local scales. Uneven growth in warehousing establishments across the Pacific Northwest has likely exerted a significant impact on the regional transportation system, but the extent of these transportation impacts remains unknown.

Summary:
In the face of many risks of disruptions to our transportation system, including natural disasters, inclement weather, terrorist acts, work stoppages, and other potential transportation disruptions, it is imperative for freight transportation system partners to plan a transportation system that can recover quickly from disruption and to prevent long-term negative economic consequences to state and regional economies.

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:
Electronic door seals (E-seals) were tested on shipping containers that traveled through ports, over borders, and on roadways. The findings showed that using these RFID devices could increase supply chain efficiency and improve the security of containerized cargo movements, particularly when E-seals replace common mechanical seals. Before the benefits of E-seals can be realized, several barriers must be addressed.

Summary:
This paper uses simulation to evaluate the use of truck arrival information to reduce container rehandles during the import container retrieval process by improving terminal operations. A variety of scenarios with different levels of truck information and various container bay configurations are modeled to explore how the information quality and bay configuration affect the magnitude of benefit.

Summary:
This paper quantifies the benefits to drayage trucks and container terminals from a data-sharing strategy designed to improve operations at the drayage truck-container terminal interface. This paper proposes a simple rule for using truck information to reduce container rehandling work and suggests a method for evaluating yard crane productivity and truck transaction time.

Summary:
Between 1998 and 2005, employment in the U.S. warehousing industry grew at a compound annual growth rate of 22.23%, and the number of establishments increased at compound annual growth rate of 9.48%. Over this same period of time, the price for transportation fuels increased dramatically and became much more volatile. In this paper we examine the microeconomic and macroeconomic forces that have enabled such rapid growth in the warehousing industry.