Transportation Planning

Planning multi-billion freight infrastructure demands goods movement models based on current, accurate data. METRIS produces data in real time. It measures flows, speeds, origins, destinations, routes, and congestion at ports, intermodal yards and highways. It follows trends by the week, or by the hour. When trade is slow due to the Chinese New Year, we know it. When flooding snares traffic on I-710, we know it.

Real-time data are fed to participating motor carriers. Here are samples of other analyses, of interest to planners. For business confidentiality and security, data are presented here with minimal detail, or are masked or distorted.

1—Basic Analyses

Port truck destinations, perturbed to protect business data.	Fleet paths, color coded by speed. Patterns of unauthorized incursions and parking can be documented. METRIS does not provide data to prosecute traffic violations.
Traffic drainage: how traffic disperses at exits	Hours of service

2—Modeling

Bobtailing is inefficient

Beyond mapping and analysis, we model the freight system, identifying inefficient practices, and modeling alternatives. For example, consider deadhead travel (bobtailing, left) and the repositioning of chassis and empty containers. They represent 60% of all trips. In the Los Angeles basin, transport of empty marine containers accounts for 10,000 trips daily, or 250,000 miles of travel. With a small set of empty storage yards (ESYs) optimally located in the Los Angeles basin, we estimate savings of 46,000 miles of truck travel, 51 tons of CO₂ emissions, and 4,500 fewer entries into the ports—reducing terminal congestion. Each day.

The empty container model was developed by Rick Church at UC Santa Barbara.