TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH Number E-C255 October 2019 Innovations in Freight Data Workshop April 9–10, 2019 Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center Irvine, California TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD 2019 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OFFICERS Chair: Victoria A. Arroyo, Executive Director, Georgetown Climate Center; Assistant Dean, Centers and Institutes; and Professor and Director, Environmental Law Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C. Vice Chair: Leslie S. Richards, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Harrisburg Division Chair for NRC Oversight: Chris Hendrickson, Hamerschlag University Professor Emeritus, Carnegie Mellon University Executive Director: Neil J. Pedersen, Transportation Research Board TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD 2018–2019 TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES COUNCIL Chair: Hyun-A C. Park, President, Spy Pond Partners, LLC, Arlington, Massachusetts Technical Activities Director: Ann M. Brach, Transportation Research Board David Ballard, Senior Economist, Gellman Research Associates, Inc., Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, Aviation Group Chair Coco A. Briseno, Deputy Director, Planning and Modal Programs, California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS), State DOT Representative Michael Griffith, Director, Office of Safety Technologies, Federal Highway Administration, Safety and System Users Group Chair George Grimes, CEO Advisor, Patriot Rail Company, Denver, Colorado, Rail Group Chair Brendon Hemily, Principal, Hemily and Associates, Public Transportation Group Chair Nikola Ivanov, Deputy Director, Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory, University of Maryland, College Park, Young Members Council Chair C. James Kruse, Director, Center for Ports and Waterways, Houston, Texas, Marine Group Chair Mark Reno, Principal Engineer, Quincy Engineering, Inc., Rancho Cordova, California, Design and Construction Group Chair Elizabeth Rushley, Lawhon & Associates, Inc., Columbus, Ohio, Planning and Environment Group Chair Joseph Schofer, Professor and Associate Dean of Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, Policy and Organization Group Chair William Varnedoe, Partner, The Kercher Group, Raleigh, North Carolina, Operations and Preservation Group Chair Fred R. Wagner, Partner, Venable, LLP, Legal Resources Group Chair TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH CIRCULAR E-C255 Innovations in Freight Data Workshop April 9–10, 2019 Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center Irvine, California Rapporteur Catherine T. Lawson University at Albany, State University of New York Sponsored by Iowa Department of Transportation October 2019 Transportation Research Board 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, D.C. www.trb.org TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH CIRCULAR E-C255 ISSN 0097-8515 The Transportation Research Board is one of seven major programs of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The mission of the Transportation Research Board is to provide leadership in transportation innovation and progress through research and information exchange, conducted within a setting that is objective, interdisciplinary, and multimodal. The Transportation Research Board is distributing this E-Circular to make the information contained herein available for use by individual practitioners in state and local transportation agencies, researchers in academic institutions, and other members of the transportation research community. The information in this E-Circular was taken directly from the submission of the authors. This document is not a report of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Planning Committee Alison Conway, City College of New York, Chair Avital Barnea, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Chandra Bondzie, Federal Highway Administration Chester Ford, Bureau of Transportation Studies Sam Hiscocks, Iowa Department of Transportation Sherif Ishak, Old Dominion University Nikola Ivanov, University of Maryland CATT Laboratory Yatman Kwan, California Department of Transportation Catherine T. Lawson, University at Albany, State University of New York Donald Ludlow, CPCS Casey Wells, Texas Department of Transportation TRB Staff Thomas Palmerlee, Senior Program Officer Keyara Dorn, Associate Program Officer Transportation Research Board 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, D.C. www.trb.org Preface eeting in Irvine, California, on April 9–10, 2019, 127 freight community members— Mincluding transportation professionals from transportation planning agencies, consultants, industry experts, and academic researchers from across North America—participated in the second Innovations in Freight Data Workshop. Alison Conway from City College of New York chaired the planning committee for this workshop. The planning committee members were solely responsible for organizing the workshop, preparing the call for abstracts, reviewing the submitted abstracts, and developing topics for panel sessions. Catherine T. Lawson from the University at Albany, State University of New York served as the workshop rapporteur and prepared this document as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop. In 2017, the first Innovations in Freight Data Workshop highlighted “big data” as a potential new data resource for freight planning, freight operations and mobility, and visualizations for communicating freight issues and solutions for decision-makers. The event brought together traditional freight-planning stakeholders with emerging technology innovators to look for opportunities to interact. Now, 2 years later, the 2019 event built upon these opportunities, bringing the stakeholders with recent experiences with big data for freight—and individuals, organizations, and agencies—to evaluate progress with new data sources and new methods and to discuss next steps to meet existing and future challenges. This workshop report follows the program agenda and includes summaries of the presentations made by each panel member, augmented with audience questions, comments, reflections on advances in data sources and methodologies, and new challenges. Audience participation varied in length and depth based on the interactions among audience members, the panelists, and the moderators. Topics covered in the various panels, interactive posters, and traditional posters included new uses of GPS trace data, new machine-learning techniques, new uses of existing freight data, and a variety of new approaches for collecting and analyzing freight data. A copy of the program with links to the presentations is available at http://onlinepubs.trb .org/onlinepubs/Conferences/2019/FreightData/Program.pdf. Special acknowledgments to the Transportation Research Board staff Tom Palmerlee, Scott Brotemarkle, and Mai Quynh Le for their support and organizational expertise. Special thanks to the Iowa Department of Transportation for their leadership of the pooled-fund study for this workshop and the seven other state departments of transportation pooled-fund members. The views expressed in this summary are those of individual workshop participants and do not necessarily represent the views of all workshop participants, the planning committee, or the Transportation Research Board. iv Contents Opening Session ............................................................................................................................ 1 Alison Conway, presiding, and Catherine T. Lawson, recording Welcome and Charge to Participants .......................................................................................... 1 Alison Conway Opening Remarks ........................................................................................................................ 2 Roger Millar and Chris Schmidt Key Takeaways ........................................................................................................................... 9 Mario Monsreal Novel Methods of Data Collection ............................................................................................. 10 Nikola Ivanov, presiding, and Sarah Hernandez, recording A Self-Sustaining, Self-Perpetuating Web-Scraping Appplication for Crude Oil Railroad Route Information ...................................................................................... 10 Chieh (Ross) Wang, Shih-Miao Chin, Ho-Ling Hwang, and Hyeonsup Lim Next-Generation Smartphone or Tablet-Based Commercial Vehicle Survey .......................... 12 Lynnette Cheah, Kyungsoo Jeong, and Alex Marach Leveraging the Crowd: The Application of Crowdsourced Data to Generate Truck Parking Insights ............................................................................................... 14 Alex Marach Key Takeaways ......................................................................................................................... 19 Jeff Short Developing Freight Data into Decision-Making Information ................................................. 20 Holly Cohen, presiding, and Julius Codjoe, recording Truck Empty Backhaul: A Florida Freight Story ...................................................................... 20 Joel Worrell Using Freight Data to Inform the 2018 Texas 100 Most-Congested Road Sections ................ 22 David Schrank and Bill Eisele Trucks and the Port of Virginia: Understanding Freight Patterns with Big Data ..................... 24 Robert Case and Catherine Manzo Key Takeaways ......................................................................................................................... 26 Mario Monsreal Developing Data Systems