Statewide truck lanes needs identification study : executive summary

GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Statewide Truck Lanes Needs Identification Study FINAL
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
April 2008
PREPARED FOR Georgia Department of Transportation Office of Planning #2 Capitol Square Atlanta, GA 30334 Phone: (404) 657-6911 Fax: (404) 657-5228 Contact: Michelle A. Caldwell PREPARED BY HNTB TEAM HNTB Corporation 3715 Northside Parkway 400 Northcreek, Suite 600 Atlanta, GA 30327 Phone: (404) 946-5700 Fax: (404) 841-2820 Contact: Andrew C. Smith, AICP Cambridge Systematics, Inc. GeoStats, LP

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Executive Summary April 2008

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A. Introduction
The Executive Summary provides a synopsis of the evaluations and findings of GDOTs Statewide Truck-Only Lanes Needs Identification Study. This abstract states the purpose and limits of the study, presents the studys key observations and findings, introduces emerging issues and opportunities, and notes next steps and study conclusions.
B. Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to understand and quantify the feasibility of Truck-only lanes, statewide. The study was designed to address the following key questions:
1. Do Truck-Only Lanes significantly reduce peak period congestion, corridor-wide?
2. If so, where should they be located?
3. What are the benefits?
4. What are the costs?
To further illustrate the scope of the study, and the use and intent of the study results and conclusions, several key assumptions were made at the beginning of the study process to guide the evaluation and analysis. Specifically these assumptions include:
Truck-only lanes would only be considered as complementary treatments to
current interstate highway facilities, key state routes (i.e. SR 400, SR 316, US 78, SR 166), and the sub-area around the port of Savannah. New or "greenfield" alignments were not considered as part of this study.
The concepts of tolling and/or pricing of the Truck-only lanes were not
considered in this study. One of the goals of this study was to determine the need, or demand for Truck-only lane usage. Assumed tolling would modify the demand and thereby reduce potential usage estimates. However, the impacts of imposing tolls will be taken into consideration, at least in the Metro Atlanta area, in the Departments ongoing "Managed Lane System Plan" study that is currently looking at the full range of managed-lane strategies, of which Truck-only lanes and Truck Only Toll lanes are but two examples.
The existing prohibition of "through" heavy trucks on the metro Atlanta interstate
system (inside I-285) was assumed to remain in place.

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Executive Summary April 2008

All identified projects, including Atlanta Regional Commissions adopted Regional
Transportation Plan (known as Envision 6), were assumed open to traffic by 2035.
Truck-only lane usage was assumed to be voluntary for truck drivers at all
times.
Growth in commerce is forecast to continue such that infrastructure investments
will need to be considered for all modes roadway, rail, water, and air. The focus of this study was roadway investments in the form of Truck-only Lanes; new or additional investments in other modes were not considered in this study. A future update of the Departments Statewide Freight Plan will consider freight oriented investments in other modes.

C. Summary and Observations
The following list describes some critical observations and insights garnered throughout the course of the Statewide Truck Lanes Needs Identification Study. This list is not intended to summarize the body of work but rather highlight critical elements that support the studys recommendations.
The Importance of Commerce to Georgia
Freight transportation plays a vital role in the development and prosperity of
Georgia. In 2004, over 945 million tons of goods valued at $1.6 trillion were transported to, from, within, and through the State of Georgia.
Commerce is an important contributor to Georgias economy. Freight and
transportation jobs account for close to 15 percent of jobs throughout the state.
An efficient, world-class transportation network is one of the primary drivers of
business location decisions.
The business climate is on the verge of explosive growth as Asian markets
become more accessible resulting from the widening of the Panama Canal.
82 percent of the nations industrial market and 79 percent of the nations
consumption market is within two or less trucking days distance from the Port of Savannah.
The Challenge
Growth! By 2035, the tonnage of freight moved in Georgia is forecast to increase
by 260 percent, 3.1 percent per year, to 2.45 billion tons, worth $4.9 trillion (in 2004 dollars)1.
Trucks carry most of the freight in Georgia by tonnage (86 percent) and carry
almost all of the intrastate shipment of freight tonnage (97 percent). Trucks carry an even larger share of the value of freight moving in Georgia (90 percent).

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1 2004 TRANSEARCH Data
Georgia Statewide Truck Lanes Needs Identification Study Georgia Department of Transportation Office of Planning

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Executive Summary April 2008

Trucks impact Georgias roadway network in several ways. First, trucks,
because of their weight (A typical truck weighs 80,000 lbs. verses a typical car, which weighs 3,000 lbs.), cause significant degradation of the highway pavements and bridges. A single tractor-trailer can equal the impact of 10,000 or more passenger cars. Second, trucks significantly impact roadway capacity because of their poor operating characteristics, especially on rural two-lane interstates and sections of interstate highway with heavy weave/merge movements. Typically trucks have the operational impact of 2.5 cars; this methodology is consistent with the "Highway Capacity Manual 2000".

Rail carries 11 percent of the freight tonnage in Georgia; however, this is heavily
dominated by through and inbound shipments, which account for 81 percent of all rail volume1.
Rail infrastructure is also experiencing increasing demand pressures and
congestion.

In 2006, this study accounted for approximately 5,550 truck transactions per day
at the Port of Savannah main gate. In fall of 2007, just 18 months later, the Port set a new record topping 8,200 gate transactions, illustrating the extreme growth at the Savannah port.

Understanding the Market for Truck-Only Lanes

Truck-only lanes provide increased mobility and reliability (to trucks utilizing the
Truck-only lanes) when compared to general purpose lanes. To achieve the highest and best use of a Truck-only lane system investment requires an understanding of the market for Truck-only lanes and designing a system that captures the greatest market share and provides the greatest opportunity to garner travel time savings.
Freight transportation route choice decision-making is a complex process driven
by supply chains and logistical efficiencies. Freight and logistics companies employ dynamic business models that refresh, almost in real time, to changing transportation system operating conditions.
Travel time savings, the commodity most cited in the use of managed lanes
facilities, is most meaningful to the freight community when: 1) the travel time savings are significant and can not be garnered via logistical efficiencies; and 2) production efficiencies can be realized (i.e. the travel time savings can be translated into an additional deliveries or trips, or the design of the facility allows for longer trucks and/or increased weight limits).
Typically, trucks strive to avoid the most congested travel periods.
Approximately sixty percent of truck travel occurs outside of the peak travel periods in Metro Atlanta2. Atlanta mirrors national trends; that in metropolitan regions, cars overwhelmingly dominate vehicle mix during peak travel periods. The Federal Highway Administration has noted the national trend in their report

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2 Atlanta Regional Commissions Travel Demand Model
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"An Initial Assessment of Freight Bottlenecks on Highways" (October 2005) which reported that "...most motor carriers work aggressively to schedule and route their truck moves outside of peak periods and around known bottlenecks. Truck volumes typically peak during the midday, especially on urban Interstate highways, and are relatively high in the early morning and at night compared to automobile volumes."
Depending on the route, heavy truck volumes typically range between 4 to 25
percent (which represents an average of 1015 percent overall) of the traveling public on Atlantas radial interstate network (see Figure 44) during an average weekday, based on ARC model data. GDOT traffic counts indicate that heavy trucks comprise of 6 percent of the Atlanta regions peak period traffic composition.
Truck-Only Lanes are most attractive when they provide meaningful blocks of
travel time savings, provide an alternative to chronically congested roadways and bottlenecks, and improve access to location of high truck activity.
Truck-Only Lanes are a form of lane management or "managed lanes".
Therefore, Truck-Only Lanes would be constructed adjacent to general purpose lanes in the same corridor. The significance of managed lanes investments over "greenfield" investments are the specific benefits they provide. As mentioned previously, travel time savings and trip reliability are the primary benefits of Truck-Only Lanes. There are no distance savings provided via a more direct route, and there is not a direct incentive for freight to shift modes.
For distances less than 500 miles, rail service is rarely cost-effective under current cost factors. Rail freight has a high-fixed costs, and low variable costs relative to the trucking industry. The high-cost such as the expensive infrastructure that is developed and maintained by the railroads compared to highway infrastructure which is funded by fuel taxes paid by both truck and auto users. The high-fixed costs of rail are also due to the fuel costs of the trains themselves which are much more expensive on a per vehicle basis. The low variable cost of freight is due to the high volumes of goods that can be carried by a train relative to a truck. These lower variable costs also translate into rail being cost-competitive with truck for shipments of 500 miles or more. This value is reflected in the report "Freight in America: A New National Picture" (January 2006, U.S. DOT, Bureau of Transportation Statistics).

Therefore, the potential for divertible O-D combinations are for those whose trips are at minimum, 500 miles from their destinations. Of particular relevance for GA freight flows that are not intrastate flows would be candidates for diversion. Only interstate and through flows are likely to be diverted.
Understanding the freight market indicates that an investment in Truck-Only
Lanes must provide meaningful travel savings, provide a option to avoid congested roadways and bottlenecks, and generally be a positive impact on the "bottom line".
While the construction of truck-only lanes attracts trucks from the general
purpose lanes and other parallel and competing facilities, the void is quickly

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Executive Summary April 2008

consumed by "latent demand". Latent demand is the phenomenon that after supply increases, demand for the facility increases or is consumed.

D. System Performance Summary
Input from the studys Steering Committee, Freight Task Forces, and citizens of Georgia through stakeholder and public meetings provided valuable guidance throughout the process of developing, refining, and evaluating the feasibility of Truck-Only Lanes in Georgia. The Steering Committee also wrestled with the essential issues related to the overall goals of the investments, the context of TruckOnly Lanes (especially in metropolitan Atlanta where other lane management investments are also under consideration) and the States ability to generate funding to pay for these improvements from both internal and external sources. This valuable input and corresponding deliberations helped shape the development of the Statewide Truck Lanes Needs Identification Studys process, evaluations, and recommendations.
All of the improvements considered, address existing pressure on the transportation network or work to mitigate the impacts of future growth. More specifically, the study focused on providing efficient transportation services to the freight community to keep the State of Georgia as one of the most desirable places for business in the United States. For these reasons, the deliberations focused on the impending pressure that freight transportation growth will have on the States infrastructure and worked to develop performance metrics.
Using the studys performance thresholds that focus primarily on potential truck lane utilization, the preliminary feasibility of several potential Truck-Only lane corridors was identified. Based on need, usage, and benefit/cost, but not considering financial feasibility, the study identified the following Metro Atlanta corridors for potential truckonly lanes (in no particular order):
Metro Atlanta:
I-75 north from I-285 to just north of Red Top Mountain Road (Exit
285)
I-285 "west wall" from I-20 north to I-75 I-20 west from just west of Thornton Road to I-285 I-285 "west wall" from I-85 south to I-20 west I-285 south from I-85 south to I-75 south I-75 south from just south of High Falls Road (Exit 198) to I-285 I-285 "top end" from I-75 north to I-85 north I-285 "east wall" from I-20 east to I-85 north I-85 north from I-285 to just north of SR 20 / Buford Drive (Exit 115) I-285 south from I-75 south to I-20 east.

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Executive Summary
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Potential Projects in the Savannah Sub-Area:
Port Connector Road, Savannah (recommend a mixed vehicle facility,
not truck-only).
Also, several operational improvements at various locations in and
around the Port of Savannah.

E. Emerging Issues and Opportunities
Truck-Only lanes would be a huge public sector investment Financing major transportation investments is challenging

F. Study's Final Findings
Despite fluctuations in the overall economy over recent months, the long-term health of the trucking industry remains strong. Several keys trends such as the growth of outsourcing and the increasing importance of time-specific deliveries will continue to drive truck growth in the future through various economic cycles.
Truck growth in Georgia over the last decade has exceeded the growth rate in both population and number of cars, in each case by a multiple of two or more. However, truck traffic is still a small percentage of total traffic on Georgias interstate highway network. Trucks average approximately 15 percent of the total number of vehicles using the interstate on a typical weekday. The percent of trucks in the morning and afternoon peak travel periods is typically lower than the daily average (due to trucks avoiding trips during peak travel periods and additional cars on the road during peak periods, which ,,dilutes overall truck volumes as a percentage of traffic). A focus on heavy trucks, those that are synonymous with intra- and interstate commerce rather than local deliveries, results in lower ranges.
Building on the strength of the truck market, truck-only lanes were investigated as complementary, free, and voluntary treatments to Georgias interstate network. Under these conditions, the truck-only lanes provided truck mobility in the most congested sections of the interstate network. However, the impact on overall corridor operations (specifically for non-heavy truck traffic in the general purpose lanes) was less than 10 miles per hour speed improvements during peak periods in the year 2035 due to:
The truck-only lanes provided transportation choices to approximately 6
percent of the travelers in the corridor (heavy trucks) during the most congested times (peak periods) of the day;
Capacity that was "freed-up" by the shifting of trucks to the truck-only lanes
was quickly "consumed" by other motorists shifting from other routes ("latent demand") resulting only slightly lower (approximately 5% lower) volumes in the general purpose lanes.

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Executive Summary April 2008

The Truck-Only Lanes attracted approximately sixty percent of the truck
market, leaving forty percent of the track traffic in the general purpose lanes based on the studys findings. This is most likely due to many trucks needing to access the multiple, frequent interchanges serving the general purpose lanes (and many of these interchanges would not be provided access to the Truck-Only lanes) to make local pick-ups and deliveries.

The resulting operational benefits of truck-only lane investments would be targeted to a small fraction of the traveling public and result in marginal overall travel time savings.

The overall transportation user benefits were significant, exceeding forecasted costs in each of the system investment scenarios by a factor of two or more. However, with a targeted customer based, 75 to 80 percent of the overall transportation user benefits are attributed to the trucking population. Further, to maximize markets share and provide the greatest opportunity for meaningful travel time savings a system of Truck-Only Lanes, providing travel choices in and around the Atlanta region, is required. The costs of providing such a system would exceed $13.0 billion in current year dollars and soar to around $22.0 billion in the year of expenditure (2020 for System 1 and 2030 for remainder of System 3). Overall, benefits exceed costs; however, the primary benefit is to the 6 percent of heavy truck traffic travelling during peak periods, which are the trucks most likely to utilize a Truck-Only lane network. Other motorists, representing 94 percent of the vehicle mix, would not realize direct and significant benefits in the general purpose lanes.

To place the projected costs of a Truck-Only network in context, the entire state of Georgia is apportioned approximately $933 million in 2008 in National Highway System (NHS), Interstate Maintenance (IM) and Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds. Without considering increases in anticipated federal revenue or construction costs, a $13.0 billion truck-only lanes network would consume over 14 years of Georgias entire federal NHS, IM and STP transportation dollars.

G. Study's Conclusions
Based on the intense level of financial commitment that would be needed to construct truck-only lanes and that the concentration of benefits accrue to a small segment of Georgias traveling public, the study concludes that the construction of a stand-alone truck-only lane network in metro Atlanta is not recommended. Several key study points support this recommendation:
Corridor-level congestion is not alleviated
Truck-only lanes would only increase traffic speeds in the general purpose lane during peak periods by an average of approximately 10 mph.

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Executive Summary April 2008

Congestion improvement is delivered primarily to trucks in truck-only lanes -which represent a small portion of peak-period motorists

On a daily basis, trucks average 10-15 percent of the traffic volumes on Metro Atlanta Interstates Considering that heavy trucks are only 6 percent of all peak period traffic, only some of these heavy trucks will use Truck-Only lanes, because some heavy trucks will need to access interchanges/locations not served by the Truck-Only lane network but are served by the existing General Purpose lane network; however, some nonheavy trucks (light duty trucks-which are included in the remaining 94 percent of peak period of traffic) may use Truck-Only lanes, provided their origins and destinations are served by the Truck-Only lane network. Regardless, an overwhelmingly vast majority of motorists will not receive direct and significant benefits because they will not travel in the Truck-Only lanes because they are not eligible to travel due to vehicle type or the Truck-Only lanes would not provide access to their origins or destinations. During peak periods, heavy trucks average approximately 6 percent of total traffic volumes on Metro Atlanta Interstates Atlanta mirrors national trends; in metropolitan regions, cars overwhelmingly dominate vehicle mix during peak travel periods.

Benefits of constructing Truck-Only lane network outweigh costs, but significant congestion benefits are narrowly distributed to only a small portion
of motorists/travelling customers (i.e. trucks travelling in truck-only lanes)

Overall, benefits exceed costs; however, the primary benefit is to the 6 percent of traffic (heavy trucks) travelling in peak periods. Other motorists, representing 94 percent of the vehicle mix, do not realize direct and significant benefits in the general purpose lanes. Construction of a Truck-only lane network is cost prohibitive based on funding availability and study assumptions (no-tolls, voluntary use).

H. Next Steps
Truck-Only Lanes are not the only strategy to address current and future truck and non-truck volumes.
GDOT is in the midst of developing a "Managed Lane System Plan" for Metro Atlanta that will consider all managed lane options and identify recommendations that are anticipated to yield significant benefits for all travelers. Data, analysis and findings from Statewide Truck-Only Lanes Needs Identification Study will be utilized as the Managed Lane System Plan investigates combinations of options such as:
High Occupancy Vehicle lanes (HOV) High Occupancy Toll lanes (HOT) Truck-Only Lanes (TOL) & Truck-Only Toll Lanes (TOT) Express Toll Lanes (ETL)

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Georgia Statewide Truck Lanes Needs Identification Study Georgia Department of Transportation Office of Planning