Cross Border Transportation Patterns at the Western Cascade Gateway and Trade Corridor: Implications for Mitigating the Impact of Delay on Regional Supply Chains

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.

Because of the larger trade volumes along the eastern portion of the U.S.-Canadian border between Michigan, New York, and Ontario, trade research on the northern U.S. border has typically focused on trade along the eastern portion of the border between Michigan, New York, and Ontario, as well as on immigration and customs issues along the southern border with Mexico. As a result, less attention has been given to the western portion of the U.S./Canada border.

This research begins to fill that gap with both a description of regional trade and a description of current delay patterns, consequences of delay, and causes of delay. Using four data sources for comparison—a Global Positioning System (GPS) freight carrier border delay data set, a commercial volume data set (BC MoT), a detailed border operations survey data set, and manifest sampling (WCOG)—the authors consider the linkages among volume, delay, border operations, commercial vehicle origin/destination, and commodities carried to create a commercial vehicle profile at the Cascade Gateway. The data also allow the authors to demonstrate transportation patterns at this gateway and along the trade corridor, and to show that they are very regional in nature.

This research will benefit both public and private stakeholders who are interested in understanding cross-border commercial vehicle commodity flows and transportation patterns in the Cascade gateway and trade corridor, as well as the profile of delay experienced at the Pacific Highway commercial border crossing. Such an understanding can aid in the development of solutions to mitigate border delay and its impacts.