Traffic counts are a major source for traffic volume data, which is needed for highway project development; financing considerations; project cost-benefit comparisons; analyzing, monitoring and controlling traffic movement on the highways; traffic accident surveillance; research purposes; highway maintenance; public information; highway legislation and many other purposes. Investments in detector infrastructure has been significant. Currently, there are approximately 3,000 Traffic Census stations in California that are used to report traffic count and classification data for State and Federal programs. The Truck Activity Monitoring System (TAMS) leverages existing in-pavement traffic sensors to provide truck activity data in California. This was accomplished by updating existing inductive loop detector sites with inductive signature technology, and implementing advanced truck classification models to provide detailed truck count data with over 40 detailed truck body configurations. The initial system was originally developed for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for implementation at sixteen locations in the San Joaquin Valley and subsequently deployed statewide to over 90 detector locations in California with funding from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). This study will improve the capabilities of the TAMS in two key areas. The first enhancement will be to design and develop the TAMS Traffic Census Reporting Dashboard – a centralized axle-based classification data reporting module within TAMS for the Caltrans Traffic Census Program, which reports traffic count data to the Highway Performance Measurement System (HPMS) to support the analysis of highway system condition, performance, and investment needs, and for apportioning Federal-aid Highway Funds. The second TAMS enhancement will leverage existing TAMS field infrastructure at strategic locations to further enhance the ability to monitor truck activity patterns on larger spatial and temporal scales. This will be accomplished through the integration of Bluetooth and inductive signature data.

This research will develop freight activity metrics to measure the impacts of COVID-19 on goods movement. The initial focus will be on intermodal freight drayage to and from the ports. Existing standalone data sources do not provide a complete view of freight activity. The effort will involve analyzing multiple distinct but complementary data sources, such as truck axle classification and weights from Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) sites, body classification from the Truck Activity Monitoring System(TAMS) sites, trajectories from truck GPS and traffic volumes and congestion from PeMS with the goal of understanding changes in truck activity such as link volumes, routing patterns and payloads of intermodal freight. The project will initially acquire WIM data from Caltrans from sites near the ports and the SoCal region to assess spatial and seasonal truck activity activity trends. Since standalone WIM data cannot distinguish drayage trucks from other heavy duty truck activity, additional TAMS sites will also be deployed at major corridors on the truck network in coordination with Caltrans. UCI is currently investigating the effects of a planned clean trucks incentive program on the I-710, where drayage truck GPS data is expected to be purchased from GeoStamp as a part of the study to analyze touring patterns of drayage trucks. Further integration of GeoStamp with WIM and TAMS data can provide further insights on CoVid-19 impacts on the efficiency of drayage operations and touring patterns, both in the spatial and temporal domain.

Goods movement is integral to the economy of California. However, California does not exist in a vacuum: its ports and economy compete nationally and internationally for the economic benefits that are brought through trade. Issues of throughput and mobility can create a competitive disadvantage for the state and California could lose business to its neighbors. As such, it is critical to understand how to remove barriers to goods movement transportation and delivery, while making the system safer and lessening the impact on the travelling public and communities. The wide range of academic, agency, and consultant work in this area means that there is a broad literature addressing these questions, but there is no recent comprehensive review that integrates a synthesis of regulatory impacts with potential operational and infrastructure improvements along with a summary of existing methods for assessing these strategies. This project will involve three main tasks. The first task will compile an inventory and evaluation of state and federal environmental, safety, and labor regulations that impact port freight and goods movement in California, with an emphasis on cumulative effects of regulation on the port freight sector’s economic competitiveness and workforce. These findings will provide the necessary context for the second task, which will conduct an evaluation of cost-effective port-related infrastructure investments and operational strategies that have been proposed or implemented by California’s ports and governing agencies to improve the efficiency of freight movement while also reducing environmental and health impacts in California. These potential improvements will be analyzed in the context of an evaluation of global best practices in increasing throughput at marine ports, including both infrastructure- and logistics-based solutions, with recommendations on actions that state, regional, and local agencies can take to increase throughput. Finally, the third task will review how improvements to California’s ports are assessed and planned, with a focus on the modeling and project selection process in California.