Freight Movement Study

The movement of freight is an important part of a fully functioning transportation system. The efficient movement of freight within and through a region is critically important to industry, retail, agriculture, international trade, and terminal operators. Metropolitan areas (especially ports), with their air cargo airports, intermodal freight yards, large trucking terminals, and shipyards, are especially affected by freight movement issues.

Examples of intermodal freight projects include bridge replacements, road widening, port and rail access improvements, terminal facility enhancements, grade separations for highway and rail, and providing connections to air cargo and new infrastructure.

The state DOT and the MPO are responsible for making sure that freight movement is considered in the transportation planning process. Federal legislation calls for the statewide and metropolitan planning processes to include reasonable opportunity for the public and interested parties, including specifically "freight shippers" and "providers of freight transportation services, "to participate in the development of plans and programs.

Many state DOTs and MPOs have systematically incorporated freight movement issues into their planning activities, for example by:

• Defining those elements of a metropolitan area's transportation system that are critical for efficient movement of freight.
• Identifying ways to measure system performance in terms of freight movement.
• Developing freight-oriented data collection and modeling to identify problems and potential solutions; and
• Creating freight movement advisory committees to identify important bottlenecks in the freight network.

Freight Movement Study Report Series

In 2009, the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization completed a Freight Movement Study, looking at the general movement of freight in the region. Although this study was a good look at the general freight movements, it raised many more questions than it answered. This report series is meant to address some of those questions. The first of these questions to be discussed is the exporting nature of businesses in the region.

Report #1: Location Quotient and Shift-Share Analysis for Lowndes County