CMV Safety | Freight Logistics & Policy | Truck Size & Weight | TACT | Wireless, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communication

<< Back to News

After a lot of thought about this whole 'freight system' data visualization thing, I, for one, have come to the following conclusions:

• Freight refers to the cargo or goods being transported

• In transportation, our focus until relatively recent times has been on the modesby which freight is transported and on the 'nodes' and 'links' that define its route.

• Our modal 'blinders,' if you will, are perhaps responsible for keeping us from taking a larger view of the 'system' as a whole (at least from an analysis standpoint)

• With the introduction or realization of global supply chains and global supply chain management, we have grown more aware of the role of 'logistics management' (in turn, expanding our view of the larger process involved in the movement of freight)

• To improve our state, regional, national, and global competititiveness (whatever that means) in freight transport, should our primary transportation system emphasis be on freight (what is being moved) or on the logistics managementof the enabling transportation system assets upon which that movement is dependent?

• . . . where one of the transportation system 'assets' important in this process is 'information' and 'access' to information

• Is the theoretical component (or emphasis) that seems to be missing in the traditional transportation system community 's conceptualization of freight the area of logistics management? It's one thing to see freight as a 'system' and something else to actively 'manage' the variables of which system operation is a function.

• By 'count,' I would suspect that the vast majority of freight professionals at the state DOT and USDOT levels are involved in the infrastructure and vehicle aspects of the 'movement' of freight and not the 'management' of that movement.

• A critical question to ask might be, to what extent do present and future logistics considerations affect decisions about the infrastructure requirements and priorities associated with the physical movement process itself.

• Is a sufficient state, regional, or national freight system plan or policy one that simply focuses on developing increased modal capacity or one that simultaneously focuses on what is required to improve our ability to manage that capacity?

• We can't optimize improvements in freight system 'capacity' without understanding the process of logistics management.

• This seems to be reminiscent of the early Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) belief that "we can't build our way of this." (i.e., we can't meet future freight system demands solely by increasing our current infrastructure capacity) –or can we?