Most people would agree that a driving habit which makes you 23 more times likely to become involved in a traffic crash is inherently extremely dangerous.  Common sense would tell you to avoid at all costs any activity that puts you at such serious risk.  Yet only 38 U.S. states have so far taken steps to address the problem.

I’m referring, of course, to texting while driving.

In Missouri, our administration, led by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, has taken an interesting approach to combating this dangerous habit – one that we hope more states will follow. First, we banned all texting while operating a motor vehicle for drivers 21 and under. This is the age group responsible for the largest proportion of distracted driving-related fatalities.

Second, we developed a special “No Driving While Texting” graphic, which we are giving out as a “window cling” decal to motorists, schools and business around the state. It’s a visible reminder to put down your PDA and focus 100% on the task of driving.

Third, we launched a public service campaign, introducing the “no texting” logo with a formal kickoff event in St. Louis, our largest city, on July 16. The message: we want every motorist – regardless of age – to stop texting while driving. To help promote the message, Con-way Freight and Roush Fenway Racing joined us in the cause, prominently displaying our “no texting” logo on the hood of the No. 16 Con-way Freight Ford Fusion race car driven by Colin Braun at the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway July 17. Colin had his best finish of the year at that race, and we like to think the new logo brought him luck.

Missouri’s motto is the “Show Me” state, but we hope in this case we’re providing an example that other states will embrace. Cell phone usage while driving contributed to more than 1,780 traffic crashes in Missouri in 2009, more than any other form of distracted driving. In the first half of 2010, there were 791 traffic crashes related to the use of cell phones behind the wheel, resulting in eight fatalities and 239 injuries. Additionally, in this same time period, there were 17,535 crashes where distracted driving was cited as a contributing cause.

Too often our troopers witness the tragic end-results of distracted driving. Of all the actions that cause traffic crashes, this is one area where a simple decision by every motorist can immediately make our highways safer. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics, nearly 6,000 people died in accidents caused by distracted driving during 2008. How many is too many?

We would like to invite every other state highway patrol organization in the U.S. to join us in this important public safety campaign. Start your own campaign to encourage all your state’s motorists to put down their phones while driving. We’ve got the template in place and we’re happy to share, and I’m sure our partners Con-way Freight and Roush Fenway Racing would lend their support to you as they did to the citizens of Missouri.

Highway Patrol and local police vehicles get a lot of visibility out on the roads, and simply displaying the message is an effort worth making. If even one person sees the logo and stops texting even one time, our highways will be a little bit safer that day.

Col. Ron Replogle is Superintendent of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. He has been a state trooper in Missouri for nearly 27 years.

Source: www.streetsblog.net

Even casual observers of transportation policy have noticed DOT’s emphasis on livability and, by extension, their fascination with “active transportation’ (aka biking and walking).  Livability is a worthy goal for all communities and, though it is still a somewhat ill-defined policy concept, biking and bike paths are certainly key components.

In an effort to make Washington, DC more livable, the Mayor and Federal policymakers decided to put a bike path down the center of Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol with no connections at either end.  For those who do not frequent that area, this is not a typical bike path.  Instead of narrow lanes down the curb side of the roadway, this bike “path” is a full three auto lanes wide going right down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue.  Yes, approximately one-third of the capacity of an already busy street in our nation’s capital was taken to serve a handful of cyclists.  The result has been increased congestion, increased emissions, long rush hour delays, and the ire of many DC visitors, cabbies, workers, and residents. This is not a very livable result for any but the cyclists and, in apparent reaction to public pressure, DC has just announced that autos will now be able to use the left lanes again.  Good for them, and an important lesson for other transportation policy makers.

Now, lest you believe I am anti-bike, I want to assure you this is not the case.  Two of my three grown children bicycle regularly in Old Town Alexandria, a nearby Washington suburb.  One does not own a car and cycles to work every day.  If for no other reason than their safety, I support adequate accommodations for cyclists.  That having been said, if cyclists are to be taken as serious members of the transportation community, perhaps it is time that reasonable requirements be placed upon them to insure they can safely interact with other road users and provide the necessary funding to support their projects.

Items that DOT and other transportation policy makers might consider are:

• Training, testing, licensing, and minimum age requirements for cyclists.
• Required insurance coverage to protect cyclists, pedestrians, and other road users.
• Minimum equipment standards and safety inspections.
• Mandatory helmet laws.
• Bike path user fees.
• Bicycle and tire excise taxes to fund bike path construction and maintenance
• Enforcement of all traffic laws for cyclists.

For policy makers who support increased use of cycling, failure to consider and provide proper regulatory oversight of new policies – and appropriate funding mechanisms to pay for it all -- is irresponsible and unfair to other road users.

The real issue is not bike paths.  It is how do policymakers determine the best use of limited transportation dollars to improve our transportation system while increasing mobility for all Americans?   There are many worthy projects, in all modes, that are well worth considering.  A bike path to nowhere is not one of them.

These are challenging times, and our nation is at a crossroads. Our economy is ailing, unemployment is soaring, spending is out of control, and deficits are at record levels. And yet, rather than pursue sound policies that create jobs, the administration remains steadfast in its efforts to push ahead with its job-killing “cap-and-tax” scheme.

Nearly one year ago, the House first embarked on its cap-and-tax experiment. The carbon mandates under the House-passed bill would mean that the United States could not emit more in the year 2050 than we emitted in 1910, requiring us to scale back our emissions to a per capita level equivalent to that of the tiny coastal nation of Belize.

And despite near double-digit unemployment and an electorate growing more restless by the day, the Senate has picked up the administration’s cap-and-tax torch with the recent introduction of the Kerry-Lieberman bill. Study after study has predicted cap-and-tax will result in skyrocketing energy bills and massive job losses, and Kerry-Lieberman puts a bull’s-eye squarely on the backs of working families who are already struggling to keep the lights on.

Last September, with little fanfare, Treasury Department documents came to light that put the administration’s projected annual costs associated with cap-and-tax in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The bombshell documents were initially released in mid-September in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. However, Treasury blacked out vital analysis specifically related to the costs of cap-and-trade. Upon urging Secretary Timothy Geithner to release the documents in their entirety, Treasury finally acquiesced, and it became clear that by the administration’s own calculations, cap-and-trade would have a devastating effect on our economy.

One particular Treasury document states cap-and-trade “will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of tens (and potentially hundreds) of billions of dollars.” Upon examination of the documents, CBS News pegged the annual cost at more than $400 billion a year.

How on earth can our economy absorb such a hit? Especially at a time when the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the president’s fiscal 2011 budget forecasts a record $1.5 trillion deficit for 2010 and $1.8 trillion in tax increases through 2020. By 2020, the debt is predicted to surpass $20 trillion, an alarming 90 percent of the economy. Interest payments on the debt are expected to more than quadruple in the next 10 years, rising from $209 billion this year to $916 billion in 2020.

These long-term figures are of particular significance as the climate debate resumes this summer, as they do not reflect the costs associated with cap-and-trade. We could be in even worse financial shape than the CBO reports suggest.

Unfortunately, it seems that no one is listening to the economic alarm bells, as the administration is still moving forward with a $100 billion handout for developing nations to cut emissions. Where are our priorities?

We cannot allow Kerry-Lieberman to sell out American workers to the international community for a policy that will cost well over $1 trillion and eliminate countless more jobs with negligible, if any, global environmental benefit.

It is not just Beltway analysts or government officials who are forecasting exorbitant costs to families. In my corner of Michigan where the unemployment rate is nearly 15 percent, Consumers Energy conservatively estimates rate increases for families in excess of 38 percent over the next 15 years just to comply with cap-and-tax. Some Michigan manufacturers have also indicated they will cease operating during the daytime and solely operate at night when electric rates are cheaper.

Meaningful climate legislation requires global participation, especially that of India and China. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that if China’s emissions of greenhouse gases keep growing at the pace of the past 30 years, the country will emit more in the next three decades than the United States has in its entire history.

Without international participation, jobs and emissions will simply shift overseas to countries that require fewer environmental protections, harming the global environment as well as the U.S. economy. Efforts to include the world’s leading emitters — India and China — in the House bill last June were rebuffed.

As the administration has continued to ignore the concerns of working families in the climate debate, House Republicans listened and developed the “all of the above” American Energy Act that would reduce emissions, create jobs and keep energy affordable. A principal component of our legislation calls for the construction of 100 new nuclear reactors over the next 20 years. According to data from Oxford Economics, building 100 new nuclear reactors and an appropriate number of enrichment and reprocessing plants over the next 20 years would create more than 1 million jobs. Nuclear power is not only emissions-free, but renewing our commitment to nuclear would create countless jobs at a time when our nation endures near double-digit unemployment.

We have a unique opportunity and responsibility to both reduce emissions and preserve our economy. The American public is desperate for solutions that will boost economic growth, create jobs and protect the pocketbooks of working families. Jobs must be our top priority, not a national energy tax, and folks will be paying very close attention this summer and in November.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. His commentary on cap and trade legislation first appeared earlier this month in Roll Call magazine.

Source: www.rutgers.edu

At a time when it is increasingly acknowledged that the federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal course, you would think the first thing a cabinet agency’s new strategic plan would do is attempt to figure out which of its historical functions are truly federal and should be continued. But that sort of prioritization is entirely absent from the U.S. DOT’s draft Strategic Plan, posted online for comment at https://dotstrategicplan.ideascale.com .

Instead we are given a vast array of poorly justified expansions of the federal role into every nook and cranny of how Americans and their goods should travel—as well as how and where we should live.

One prevailing theme is frustration that current law does not permit the DOT to exercise as much micromanagement as its leaders think they should be doing. For example, the plan laments the lack of federal authority to regulate the safety of mass transit, as well as the lack of federal control over which specific highway and bridge projects states spend their federal highway monies on (as opposed to the numerous programs into which the feds already divide up these funds). It even laments that “DOT’s Federal-aid roadway design standards are not enforceable on local streets,” so that unless the law is changed, the DOT can only “encourage” more states to adopt the “complete streets” model in which every street in America must be equipped with sidewalks and bike paths.

Another recurrent theme is performance measures—but they are selectively and inconsistently applied. For example, something as basic as a minimum benefit/cost ratio threshold (perhaps 1.5) would weed out numerous low-priority projects that sound nice but aren’t worth the money. The only instance in which such a standard is discussed is with regard to possible airport expansion. It is not mentioned with respect to with DOT’s newly favored sectors: transit, streetcars, high-speed rail, the “marine highway,” etc.

The phrase “data-driven” appears several times, but only in limited contexts such as multimodal safety problems—not to evaluate favored modes or favored themes. The notion of a level playing field among transportation modes is mentioned several times—but the only aspects where analysis is suggested are on fuel-use, safety, and environmental benefits. What about a level-playing field comparison of goods-movement modes on cost, delivery time, and reliability?

A major focus of the previous Administration’s DOT, under both Democrat Norm Mineta and Republican Mary Peters, was congestion reduction. This applied to both surface and air transportation, and included active promotion of market pricing in both areas (with no success in aviation, alas). Unfortunately, while the draft strategic plan gives lip service to reducing congestion, its approach to doing this in urban areas is to expand transit, promote ride-sharing and flextime, and support the demand-management form of road pricing. (Tellingly, that reference to pricing is buried in the “State of Good Repair” chapter, which is mainly about asset management.)

And that provides a clue to one of the major omissions from the Plan: capacity expansion. While it expresses limited support for expanding airport capacity, in highways its only concession is the possibility of “targeted investments” in “our national freight highway corridors to address bottlenecks.”

But as far as motorists are concerned, there is not a word about adding capacity to cope with projected growth and reduce congestion. In fact, the plan even suggests that more cities do as San Francisco did after its last earthquake and tear down urban freeways that may no longer be needed. And in its redefinition of “functionally obsolete” bridges, it refers to not having “adequate lane widths, shoulder widths, or vertical clearances,” but makes no mention of not having enough lanes. It also uncritically accepts the “We can’t build our way out of congestion” mantra, despite extensive evidence to the contrary (especially with priced capacity).

Entire chapters are devoted to the Secretary’s two favorite topics: Livability and Environmental Sustainability. Both are notable for broad assertions presented without acknowledging considerable data and analysis calling them into question. For example: “A comprehensive strategy that promotes livability and reduced the demand for auto travel will significantly lower the long-run cost of transportation (and other infrastructure) for both household budgets and taxpayers.” (p. 30) That’s an astounding claim, accompanied by zero evidence. Transit and smart-growth advocacy groups typically argue that substituting transit for driving saves an individual money—but they ignore the large taxpayer cost of the highly subsidized transit alternative.

Another example is a tricky little game played with transportation data. The National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) did indeed find that 11.6% of all individual trips are made by walking or bicycling. Page 51 contrasts that figure with the less than 2% of annual Federal Aid Highway funds spent on walking and biking. First, this ignores the other NHTS finding that in terms of person-miles traveled, biking and walking together come to just 0.9% of the total (but still get 2% of the funding). Second, federal highway funds are supposed to fund important federal highways , like the Interstates. There is also the factoid that 40% of all metro-area trips are two miles or less in length and therefore “could be taken on foot or bicycle”—if you ignore how people value their time, the vagaries of weather, the stuff they have to carry, etc.

Yet another assertion, presented with no attempt at substantiation, is that “Creating livable communities is just as important to residents of rural areas as it is to residents of urban and suburban areas.”

Finally, in the chapter on sustainability, this allegedly data-driven, performance-based plan simply asserts that “to reduce carbon emissions, improve energy efficiency, and reduce dependence on oil,” the nation must begin “development of a national network of high-speed rail corridors.” A similarly vague justification is given for DOT to “strategically expand the marine highway system.” These mode choices are never presented as having emerged from a data-driven, mode-neutral benefit/cost analysis; they are simply assumed to be wise choices on which to expand billions of federal tax dollars. In particular, nowhere in the entire document is there any mention of using a cost/ton standard (such as no more than $50/ton) to sort out cost-effective greenhouse gas reduction measures from highly wasteful ones.

This draft plan is presumably a preview of what the Administration will set forth in its proposal for reauthorizing the federal surface transportation program. That amply demonstrates the need for a fundamentally different alternative to emerge from Congress.

Bob Poole is a Searle Freedom Trust Transportation Fellow and Director of Transportation Policy for the Reason Foundation, the free market think tank. A recognized transportation policy expert, Mr. Poole has advised the previous four Presidential administrations on transportation and policy issues. This column first appeared in the May 2010 issue of the Reason Foundation’s Surface Transportation Innovations e-newsletter.

If you are a track and field fan, as I am, you know that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is the fastest human being on earth.  Some say that the man can really fly!

The three-time Olympic gold medalist personally holds the world records in the 100 and 200 meter dashes.  His speedy accomplishments have spawned a knock-off commercial for a well known communication provider that depicts a sprinter texting while running out ahead of his competition.  In the end, the sprinter, despite texting and running at the same time, wins the race without ever running out of his lane.

If only it were that easy in real life when driving.

The safety problem associated with texting while driving is big news in today’s world.  States as well as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are quickly enacting laws to ban the use of cell phones and restrict any type of texting while driving.  Safety advocates are coming out of their seats to reiterate what many studies have revealed – that the combination of texting and driving is profoundly dangerous.

A recent study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute using long-haul truck drivers concluded that when drivers texted while driving, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting.  Though the study did not include passenger vehicles, researchers agree that the findings apply to all drivers.

It’s hard not to agree that the two behaviors are incompatible bedfellows, but very few people have looked at the science behind the issue – which presents a very interesting story.

There are three basic types of distractions: visual, manual and cognitive.  While all driving distractions have some degree of risk, texting is the most dangerous because it involves all three types of distractions.  Drivers who text while driving are guilty of taking their eyes off the road, at least one hand off of the steering wheel, and their focus off of driving.

Research shows that drivers take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds out of every 6 seconds while texting.  At 55 miles per hour, texting drivers will travel the length of a football field, including the end zones, without looking at the road!

If you are bird in flight, you may be able to get away with this risk, since millions of years of evolution have given birds the sharp visual acuity to recognize and react to objects at high speed.  But man was not meant to fly.  Physiologically, man was designed to travel on two legs. Even Usain Bolt, when setting the world speed record, was clocked at a mere 27 miles per hour.  Hardly the requisite speed for flight.

Not all of us can run as fast as Usain.  The average top running speed for most of us is about 14 miles per hour.  When we get behind the wheel of a car, we experience some of the same sensations of flying such as speed and centrifugal force.  But as we begin to move at speeds greater that what we are built to adapt to, it becomes more difficult to react in time to increasing speeds.

Herein lays one of the scientific rubs.  A little phenomenon referred to as the flicker fusion factor separates man from birds when it comes to reaction times and speed.

The flicker fusion factor is a concept in the psychophysics of vision.  It is defined as the frequency at which an intermittent light beam appears to be completely steady to the observer.  Humans have a flicker fusion frequency of 60 cycles per second.  Birds have a much greater frequency allowing them to fly and navigate a forest of trees while chasing their prey at high speeds without the benefit of speed limits, traffic signals, and lane restrictions.

Unlike our eyes, which make up 1% of the total weight of our heads, the eyes of a bird are the largest organ in size relative to their bodies of all animals.  Birds also rely on a much greater peripheral vision than we as humans have, truly providing a bird’s eye view.

If you aren’t feeling totally inferior just yet, a white paper from the National Safety Council illustrates that the human brain cannot multitask.  Our brain can juggle tasks very rapidly, but it can only perform one task at a time.  A person who is texting while driving is overloading their brain requiring divided attention.

As motorists, the faster we drive above our 14 miles per hour speed limit, the more we are incapable of escaping our own physiological limitations that separate ourselves from our high-flying friends.  Add in the extra distraction of texting while driving to a single-tasking brain, and you have a potential deadly mix that is beyond our physical control.

If you are still not convinced, try remembering the last time that you witnessed a bird crashing into a tree!

In the end, it is nothing to be ashamed of.  After all, we are only human.

Source: www.transportation1.org

Truth #1: Truckers and railroaders do not get along.  I sometimes like to pose provocative questions to groups of truckers or railroaders (but not both together) to watch the impassioned discussion that ensues.

Truth #2: Demand for transportation was rising steadily before the recent recession.  Although much of the increase is attributed to rising GDP, growth in VMT must also be attributed to shifts in transportation use.  Increasingly, GDP is made up of services that require fewer VMTs.  Freight (and car) VMTs per capita have steadily increased indicating greater consumption of freight services.

Truth #3: The funds (user fees) collected by all forms of government in the U.S. are not enough to fund road infrastructure.  The recent TRB Special Report 285 and the report by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission highlight the loss of purchasing power of the all user taxes for road construction and maintenance.

Truth #4: The root cause of our road funding problems is not abuse of the Highway Trust Fund.  Even evil “Mass Transit” may provide capacity by removing cars from highways at a cost cheaper than construction of new lanes.  How many lanes of highway would have to be constructed to replace the Washington Metro?  What would the city look like without it?

Truth #5: Some trucks do not pay the full cost for their highway use.  The book “Road Work” by Small, Winston, and Evans (1989) pointed out that very heavy trucks do not pay the true marginal cost of their highway use.  The primary culprit according to the authors is a user-charge based on fuel use rather than axle weight and miles traveled.  Transportation Research Board Special Report 246 showed much the same thing by comparing several modes of transportation.

Truth #6: Lower cost is not equal to higher efficiency.  For economists, efficiency means getting higher value outputs from a given value of inputs.  While the lower total costs associated with heavier, six-axle trucks are difficult to argue with (with the possible exception of bridge costs), lowering the price of an already underpriced good could be a bad thing for all concerned.  Economists know that price controls, cause shortages because suppliers will refuse to supply at the lower price.  We are facing just such a situation with road infrastructure today.  States are refusing to provide (or maintain) road infrastructure because the revenue received for its use is less the cost to provide it.  In such a situation, lowering the cost still further by permitting slightly more efficient trucks could have the undesired (by some) effect of stimulating increased road use, therefore exacerbating problems with infrastructure financing.

In my opinion, loosening Federal weight restrictions will not occur until usage-based road financing is changed to some scheme that is both accurate and fair.  Such a scheme should be based on the cost of road use.  While many truckers have asked for increased fuel taxes to cover the cost of maintaining roads, few have advocated an approach like Oregon’s experimental VMT tax or Germany’s VMT tax.  Should my colleague’s Mercedes Benz diesel pay the same fuel tax as an eighteen wheeler?  Should a straight truck pay the same tax as a rocky mountain double?

Yes, railroads protest too much, but permitting heavier trucks is no panacea for the highway system either.  Economic sustainability comes from having prices reflect true costs, not from cheaper prices.  Any change that accomplished the later without the former will only make the situation worse.

It is now time for me to step out of the room.

Pete Swan is assistant professor of Logistics and Operations Management at the Penn State Harrisburg School of Business Administration. He is a regular contributor of research, commentaries and papers on freight transportation industry issues and has been a member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) since 2002. He is currently chair of the TRB’s Freight Systems Group in addition to his academic responsibilities for Penn State.

After graduating high school in 1976 I was living in an old steel/manufacturing town where there were few employment possibilities.  At that time continuing on to college just wasn’t an option.   I was 18 years old. I needed to decide what to do with my life. How do you know what you want to do when you’ve experienced so little?

My father ingrained in me simple but important qualities that you should always work hard and give a job your best effort.  Surely there were employers looking for workers with such traits. But what could I offer an employer? My father worked in a small family business alongside his 4 brothers.  The rest of my family worked in one of the large manufacturing plants.  There was no room in the family business, and the large plants were all in decline.

The only things at that time that interested me were truck driving and serving in the military.  If I wanted to enter a truck driving school, I would have needed to take out a loan.  Most employers wanted their drivers at a minimum age of 21. If I didn’t get a job in trucking how would I pay back the loan? If I entered the military, they would train me to drive a truck, and when my enlistment was up I would be 21.  So that’s the course I took, serving my country and being a truck driver in the military.

I came out of the service three years later, smack into a slumping economy. I decided to focus all my efforts on one employer that was hiring drivers.  I submitted 54 applications to this employer in hope for an opportunity.  Finally I got an interview and a road test.  While being tested, the safety manager told me he was impressed with my determination, and I got the interview because I always filled out a consistent application and never gave up.

I was so excited to get that job.  Not only did it alter my career, but it changed my life. It gave me purpose. It reinforced basic principles about respect, integrity, dignity, being accountable to yourself and others, and the value of an honest day’s work. It gave me confidence that I could achieve things I once doubted, such as owning a home and providing well for my family.

I have been a professional truck driver for 28 years now, and increasingly I ask myself, where will we find the next generation for our industry?  I realize that today’s young adults are different (Twitter? Facebook? Online everything all the time?) from my generation in lots of ways.  Yet many of them will come out of high school much like I did: unsure of their future, not knowing what options are available to them to shape it.  They will ask many of the same questions I did 28 years ago.

How do we attract them to the trucking industry? Simple. Just ask them. Take a page out of the past, invite them to join as an “apprentice” (when did you last hear that term) where they can learn and experience the profession through paid, on-the-job training.

That’s exactly what my company, Con-way Freight, has set up, and what I will be doing as a driver-training instructor in this new program. Apprentice drivers will be offered a part-time 20 hour week working on the dock to provide them with income.  The other 20 hours will be spent learning the industry’s rules, safety regulations and how to drive a truck – at no cost. When the candidate successfully completes the program, they’ll be offered the opportunity for promotion to full-fledged Con-way Driver Sales Representative.

This program is designed to do much more than fill the seats of Con-way Freight’s trucks.  When the student completes the program, not only will they have their Commercial Drivers License (CDL), they will have learned how to be CSA 2010 compliant – a requirement for the future. They’ll be among the best trained, safest and most knowledgeable drivers in the industry.

Many things have changed over my 28 years of trucking, but the need for good people has not.  Tomorrow’s drivers will have to be better and more knowledgeable than I was when I started.  I’ve learned a lot over the years, and as a driving instructor I hope to share that insight and experience with the young people who join our program.  For me, it’s time to “Pay it Forward” by giving back to an industry that’s given me so much.

David May is a driver-sales representative for Con-way Freight and works a city route for the company’s Buffalo, NY service center. A 28-year industry veteran, he is an America’s Road Team captain and a vocal advocate for the trucking industry, professional truck drivers and improving safety for all motorists on America’s highways.

source: outdoor.com

As concern about global climate change continues to rise, more and more people are talking about shifting freight from trucks to rail. Rail is more efficient, many believe, and it requires less fuel consumption.

“This would really benefit the environment,” they say.

We say, “Not so fast.”

A recent analysis published in Transportation Fundamentals examines the truck vs. rail question and finds some interesting answers. According to author Noël Perry, managing director and senior consultant at FTR Associates, most of the U.S. freight now traveling by truck would actually require more energy consumption if transported rail-only. While rail itself is more fuel efficient, it creates far more of certain emissions than trucks are allowed to under current standards. Clearly the addition of trucks, at least in some stages of the supply chain, allows for the most effective — and greenest — combination of resources.

As Perry writes, “Existing market forces have already done an excellent job of maximizing fuel efficiency by allowing rail and truck to do what they do best.”

What they do best, according to Perry, is intercity long-haul for rail and more local short-haul transportation for trucks. The biggest challenge to combining those strengths is accessibility to intermodal terminals to enable convenient truck-to-rail transloading. The government should, Perry argues, support increased accessibility to those terminals. He also favors modifying truck size and weight standards and lowering rail’s nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions limits to current truck standards. These actions would represent significant steps toward a greener transportation system.

Valid points, all.

There’s also the question of congestion in the nation’s freight system, a problematic issue that could become very serious in the event of a major increase in rail freight. Industry analysts have predicted that adding even 25 percent more freight into the already overburdened rail system would create serious congestion, efficiency and productivity issues. What repercussions could we expect from adding even more freight than that?

When it comes to road congestion, the picture looks no rosier. While many rail proponents push for a modal shift that would remove 10 percent of freight traffic from America’s highways, that remains an unachievable goal. In fact, an American Trucking Associations (ATA) analysis found that doubling the freight tonnage traveling by rail would result in only a roughly 1 percent reduction in trucks on the road by 2018.  To multiply that figure by 10 would require tremendous rail infrastructure investments, which seems highly unlikely — especially given that the last major line-haul route built in the United States was constructed in 1909.

Clearly, there are no quick answers. But with freight tonnage projected to grow 28 percent by 2018 , it’s good that analysts like Noël Perry are asking — and finding answers — to the questions. Let’s keep that conversation going.

Source: www.wikipedia.org

For the past 18 years, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville has conducted its “Annual Trends in Logistics and Transportation” study.  This year, the unprecedented challenges brought on by the global recession were at the forefront of survey participants’ minds. Economic hardship produced intense pressure to reduce costs across supply chains. Unpredictable demand for goods and services, increased customer demands, and volatile commodity and fuel prices combined to make 2009 one of the most difficult operating years ever for businesses.

Over the many years that we have been conducting the Annual Trends study there have been several economic down cycles, although none compared to the intensity of 2009. While companies always seek to become more efficient, challenging economic times drive companies to become even more relentless in their quest to reduce costs. What we discovered from our analysis is that these cost-cutting initiatives can impact firms both positively and negatively for several years after the economy recovers. What lessons have we learned that can be applied to the current situation?

• Cost-cutting must be done using a “strategic filter”
• Investments in improving supply chain capabilities should not be delayed
• Even in bad times, customer service cannot be sacrificed

The reflection on the past led us to the theme of the 2009 study — sustainable supply chain management practice. The changes we are dealing with today are not for a season. Some argue that continual economic and social change is the “new normal.” Instead of constantly re-orienting to the changing conditions, perhaps a wiser approach would be to create a supply chain practice that adapts to conditions. While the term “sustainable” has been used lately in the context of environmental and green issues, it also succinctly conveys the need to build and develop approaches and techniques for managing and operating the supply chain that will make the firm more responsive to a host of circumstances such as those cited above.

We have identified five drivers that constitute the core of sustainable practice in supply chain management. These drivers are optimization, synchronization, profitability, adaptability and velocity. They comprise the engine that will fuel growth and success. They represent capabilities that will be difficult for the competition to emulate, and they are fundamental to creating a supply chain that will outpace the competition.

Why are these drivers so critical to successful supply chains? Perhaps it is the unique set of capabilities, both individually and collectively, that they represent. The following provides a short descriptor for each driver:

Optimization is the alignment of global supply chain resources — both tangible and intangible, owned or outsourced — to facilitate the success of supply chain members.

Synchronization is the ability to coordinate, organize and manage end-to-end supply chain flows — products, services, information and financials — in such a way that the supply chain functions as a single entity.

Profitability is the result of creating value through supply chain activities. Asset performance, working capital and returns on investment for infrastructure, technology and people are some of the critical parts that create value in a global environment.

Adaptability is the degree to which respective supply chain members can change practices, processes and/or structures of systems and networks in response to unexpected events, their effects or impacts.

Velocity is the speed at which end-to-end flows occur in the supply chain. It encompasses speed-to-market for new product introduction and execution when conditions are rapidly changing.

As companies work to recover from the economic perfect storm of 2009, revisiting and reexamining their supply chain process against these five drivers of sustainable practice should be a priority. It is an exercise that will help determine if your supply chain can adapt and be successful in today’s “new normal” of continual economic and social change.

Dr. Mary Holcomb is associate professor of logistics at The University of Tennessee. The findings of her 2009 Annual Survey and more information on the five drivers of sustainable supply chain performance can be found at www.transportation-trends.com.

Source: www.ens-newswire.com

According to a national transportation research group, poor road conditions cost Michigan motorists over $2 billion annually. These costs harm Michigan families and damage the competitiveness of Michigan businesses. Instead of directing funds to this important need, federal policies are diverting taxpayer dollars to wasteful purposes and Michigan citizens and businesses are paying more in gas taxes than is returning to our state.

Taxpayer dollars are not being used wisely. Past Transportation Appropriations bills have included numerous wasteful projects, such as the infamous Bridge to Nowhere. The $787 billion (now $862 billion) stimulus package was supposed to include significant infrastructure spending, but money was wasted on searching for fossils in Argentina , puppet shows, and creating a $5 million energy system for a privately-owned mall that is mostly empty. Our roads are crumbling, yet Congress is wasting our money.

Michigan is not receiving its fair share of gas tax transportation dollars. Since 1957, Michigan has only received 84 cents back for every dollar in gas tax revenue collected. This has improved over the years, but Michigan still only receives back 94 cents on the dollar.

The common sense path is for taxpayer dollars to be spent wisely on priorities such as road and highway repair and construction. Additionally, I support federal legislation that would turn back all gas tax revenue collected in each state to that state. Not only will this ensure that Michigan is no longer a donor state, but transportation funds will no longer be diverted into wasteful federal earmarks.

Tim Walberg has worked in higher education, was previously elected to the Michigan House of Representatives, and served in the U.S. Congress from 2007-2008.  He is running as a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Michigan's 7th District.