Identifying Gaps and Limitations in Data Sources by Mapping the Transportation Chain of International Trade Shipments at U.S. Ports

摘要

According to the Transportation Research Board, from 1990 to 2001, the value of U.S. international merchandise trade more than doubled (in inflation-adjusted dollars), from $891 billion to over $2 trillion. Also, during this period, the value of U.S. merchandise trade grew at an average annual rate of 8 percent, while growth in U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) averaged 3 percent per year. Further, more than 10 percent of the 16 billion tons of freight moved on the nation's transportation system is international freight, either entering the country as imports or intended for export. The increasing pace of globalization and the differential in manufacturing costs between the U.S and developing countries like China will mean that trade, and more particularly imports, will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Despite the growing importance of international trade in the U.S. economy, existing data sources do not provide any transportation data on the domestic portion of import shipments. This report, while profiling existing data sources, makes an attempt to map the transportation chain of international trade shipments using profiled data sources and thus identifies data gaps and limitations in mapping that chain.