Multimodal Freight Distribution & Economic Development due to International Capacity Expansion

摘要

This paper examines how international expansion may redistribute trade volumes across the intermodal system, including ports, waterways, railroads, and highways within the US Midwest and Southeast regions. The research includes a capacity analysis of existing transportation infrastructures to identify the possibility of capacity expansion. It also conducts economic development analysis to quantify the anticipated economic growth due to the increased freight movement in the potential sites. While developing the scenario based distribution model, this research focuses on the top six Asian countries that contribute 62 percent of current container imports. It also focuses on the top ten US ports, three more ports in the US that are critical to the study regions (Midwest and Southeast), and one Canadian port which is also critical to the Midwest and Southeast. Overall, there appears to be only minor economic impact on the Southeast and port states from the Panama Canal and the Port of Prince Rupert expansions. However, the Chicago-North area and other interior states experience significant impacts from the Panama Canal and the Port of Prince Rupert expansions under all three scenarios. This research provides decision makers with the information necessary to identify bottlenecks in the transportation network due to international capacity expansion and to identify/invest in targeted multimodal system improvements.