Long Haul Freight Movement

This special report underscores the national interconnectivity of the truck/highway portion of the freight system and demonstrates that changes in freight movement trends and the impact of system improvements to the system can be consistently and nearly instantaneously monitored.

INRIX has the nation’s largest data warehouse of sampled vehicle speeds, including the most extensive data related specifically to freight activity. In this annual Scorecard, the subset of GPS vehicle probe data from 2009 attributed to vehicles focused on long haul freight movement has been separated from INRIX's broadest GPS data warehouse archive to present a timely snapshot of national freight movement via highways. While the distribution of samples may not precisely match the movement of all long haul vehicles nationwide, with INRIX’s billions of data points and sources nationwide, this is the most extensive, consistent, and current analysis done to date on national freight activity.

The relative density of measured freight activity on the nation’s major roads is shown in the figure, below. The figure illustrates that the nation’s truck freight network is highly interconnected, with some of its most important links – the southern California desert, I-40 through Arkansas and the Borman Expressway (I-80/I-94) through Northwestern Indiana for example – located in places that aren’t immediately obvious (except to fleets and people traveling those roads). Several organizations, including AASHTO and two important national policy panels, have recently called policies and programs elevating freight transportation as a strategic national transportation issue.

Some facts from the data:

Less than 5% of the roughly 110,000 road miles have 3 times or more the average density of freight data.
Only 51 segments – spanning 57 miles -- have more than five times the national average of long haul freight activity.
The top 51 segments are spread throughout the east, south and Midwest on 13 different roads in 19 counties within 13 CBSAs (5 of which are not in the top 100 largest) in 11 states.
Of the busiest 1,000 miles twenty-eight states have portions represented, however more than 95% of the mileage comes from just 6 states: California, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Pennsylvania.
Of the busiest 1,000 miles 28 different roads are represented, with more than 50% of the mileage coming from I-40, I-10 and I-81.

Which Cities Have the Most Long Haul Freight?

By focusing on road segments in the nation’s largest 100 markets, the amount of freight moving through each region can be assessed and compared. In 2009, 44.8% of the freight vehicle data volume analyzed was located in these top 100 markets – roughly in proportion to the total road miles located in these regions (45.1%). Thus, an important conclusion from the data is that long haul freight activity is proportional in urban and inter-urban areas; it is not a rural or urban issue – it affects both roughly the same. Long-haul freight is an Urban AND Rural issue – in addition to a national economic competitiveness issue.

Of course, not all regions have the same level of freight activity. The table below ranks the 100 largest CBSAs based on “activity/mile” which adjusts the total amount of freight activity measured in a region by the total road mileage analyzed in the region. The Table shows the relative level of activity by comparing each region to the average activity per mile (2.00 means the region had twice the per mile long haul freight activity measured than average). The Table also includes the ranking of each region in terms of the overall activity measured, irrespective of the number of miles.