Envisioning and Advocating for a More Efficient Transportation System
Recent supply chain sclerosis, congested highways, expected to get more crowded, and projected exponential growth of freight shipping, all in the face of a complete absence of potentially transformative innovations, do not paint a bright future for the US transportation system.
Read more for a vision of a more streamlined and efficient transportation system.
Integration Transportation Infrastructure
While the Department of Transportation Strategic Plan for 2022-2026 proposes “. . . investing in purpose-driven research and innovation to meet the challenges of the present” and “ . . to modernize a transportation system of the future,” it includes few specifics other than promoting “ . . the adoption of noteworthy multimodal transportation system management and operations practices” and investing in “ . .multimodal capacity to improve travel time reliability on congested corridors.”
In other words, building on improvements in the existing paradigm but not transforming it.
Future Truck Highway Congestion
A new paradigm might integrate the two existing inter-city travel networks, major highways, already congested to a significant degree by trucks, and railroad trackage, largely dormant except as traversed by individual trains.
Apart from the monumental changes in railway management that would be required, radically transformative shipping vehicles would also be required to make this new paradigm a reality. Such vehicles, capable of traveling on integrated highways and railways and autonomously transitionable from one to the other, may be developed based on currently available technology, with relatively minor changes in rail infrastructure.
Such road-rail intermodal vehicles would facilitate more efficient road-rail intermodal efficiency, enabling direct shipping from freight origination points to destination points, with intermediate driverless long hauls (via rail) and more efficient rail yard transfers. Reduced demand for drivers would also likely result, not to mention the much-improved fuel economy and environmental advantages of truck rail intermodal rail versus highway travel, long touted by the railroad industry.
Railroads, the trucking industry, highway planners, shippers, and major retailers may all benefit individually and collectively from the systemic integration of the two major domestic shipping modes made possible by road-rail intermodal vehicles, as discussed below. Transportation industry researchers, planners, and users cannot and should not overlook these potentially transformative developments.
Synergistic Truck Rail Intermodal
Integrating railroads’ trackage with highway-capable vehicles would undoubtedly fly in the face of one of railroads’ biggest profitability objectives, namely longer and longer trains, particularly those transporting a single commodity from and to fixed points of origination and destination. But the alternative could be surprising. And that integration might in fact be synergistic.
Among the benefits of integrating highway-capable vehicles into the railway system could be the expansive and more efficient and more profitable evolution of seamless road-rail intermodal traffic which railroads have long anticipated but seldom realized.
Truck Rail Intermodal Efficiency
As electrically powered trucks and railroad engines become more common, as is widely predicted, electrical utilities may also benefit from the envisioned integration of trucking and railroading.
The monumental, potential transformation of railroads and freight transportation described above is presented as a basis for others to consider, to promote and to develop but this vision is unlikely to be realized unless others, particularly legislators and governmental regulators, can be convinced to initiate the steps necessary to evaluate, promote and develop the implementation of this vision. Others who do share this vision are encouraged to join in advocating its realization to relevant legislators, to transportation system regulators and to relevant industry leaders.
Non-confidential comments and questions are invited. E-mail addresses will not be shared without prior approval.
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