HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN - Freight Technology Assessment and Harmonization - Mid-America ...
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HEARTLAND FREIGHT
TECHNOLOGY PLAN
Freight Technology Assessment and Harmonization
Technical Memorandum
FINAL
October 1, 2020
Prepared by
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... 5
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 10
PROJECT BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................ 10
SCOPE AND PURPOSE............................................................................................................. 10
FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY MONITORING ......................................................................... 12
FREIGHT TECHNOLOGIES WATCH LIST ................................................................................ 14
Freight Technology Categories ..................................................................................................... 14
Automated............................................................................................................................................ 15
Big Data ................................................................................................................................................. 15
Data, Information and Communication ..................................................................................... 15
Digital Supply Chain .......................................................................................................................... 16
Energy .................................................................................................................................................... 16
Enforcement and Inspection .......................................................................................................... 17
Intermodalism ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Safety ...................................................................................................................................................... 18
ASSESS TECHNOLOGY TIMEFRAME/MATURITY .................................................................. 18
Key Stakeholder Engagement ....................................................................................................... 21
Economic Implications for Technology Investment – Task 2 Findings Revisited ........ 22
ASSESS TECHNOLOGY BENEFITS ........................................................................................... 24
Identifying Technologies with Public Benefit ........................................................................... 25
Benefits Assessment.......................................................................................................................... 26
Further Discussion of Freight Technology Characteristics .................................................. 28
MAINTAIN FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY WATCH LIST ............................................................... 35
REPEAT CADENCE-DRIVEN ASSESSMENT PROCESS ........................................................... 37
HARMONIZATION ........................................................................................................... 38
HARMONIZATION AND COORDINATION ............................................................................ 38
Harmonizing Policy and Practice .................................................................................................. 39
Coordinating Technology – Regional ......................................................................................... 40
Coordinating Technology – Long Distance .............................................................................. 42
SWOT ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................. 44
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STRENGTHS ............................................................................................................................. 44
WEAKNESSES ........................................................................................................................... 46
OPPORTUNITIES ...................................................................................................................... 48
THREATS .................................................................................................................................. 49
FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS .......................................................................................... 51
RECOMMENDATION: ORGANIZE FOR SUCCESS .................................................................. 51
RECOMMENDATION: STRATEGIC ACTION ........................................................................... 56
RECOMMENDATION: ADVANCED DRIVER ASSISTANCE SYSTEMS PROGRAM SUPPORT
57
RECOMMENDATION: ELECTRIFICATION PROGRAM SUPPORT ......................................... 59
APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................... 63
APPENDIX A – EMERGING TECHNOLOGY INVENTORY ...................................................... 63
APPENDIX B – TECHNOLOGY MATURITY ASSESSMENT ..................................................... 69
APPENDIX C – EMERGING TECHNOLOGY SURVEY SUMMARY .......................................... 72
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report presents findings on the assessment, management, and regional
harmonization of emerging freight technology and concludes Task 3 in the
development of the Heartland Freight Technology Plan (HFTP). The Heartland Region
consists of the states of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and the counties of Illinois
near St. Louis. The findings herein reflect interviews and a survey of stakeholders,
secondary research, and a two-day virtual workshop conducted with over 50 regional
stakeholders in May 2020. The report includes a review of the relevant technologies,
evaluation of their maturity and benefits, and ways to keep the evaluation up to date. It
describes current practice and challenges in coordination of technology plans and
policies among public agencies in the Heartland, and analyzes regional strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats in this regard. It concludes with
recommendations for how Heartland agencies can organize to attain benefits and
reduce deficiencies and presents two options for technology programs. The programs
combine action in urban and rural areas, address strategic needs and support service in
the Heartland’s principal markets, incorporate constituent appeal, and pursue material
benefits from consequential technology in the near and medium term.
The final recommendations fall under three main categories: regional organization, and
the support of both Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) programs and
electrification programs. Highlights of these recommendations, detailed later in the
report, are as follows:
Regional Organization
Organization of a regional approach to technology is warranted, beneficial, and best
done in cooperation with the private sector. Seven considerations guide this approach:
• Practical Scale: the region should walk before it runs, reflecting its resources, its
level of collaborative experience across sectors, and need for focused action.
• Scalability: technology will continue to evolve; organizational capabilities and
procedures must grow with it.
• Form: establish a core team with responsibility for strategy and programs, supported
by working groups drawn from member agencies responsible for implementation.
The team initially will be the consortium itself but may come to reside with a multi-
state organization. Use formal agreement to ensure that part-time personnel have
clear direction on their commitments to the project.
• Champion: options for identifying a program champion include assessment of
consortium members themselves or of others within their agencies and seeking a
private sector champion from among the region’s Freight Advisory Committees
(FACs) to pair with the consortium chairperson.
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• Funding: funding for fixed costs should come from sources that can be committed
for multiple years; federal state planning and research funds might be such a source.
Variable costs could be applied for within existing agency programs (e.g., Congestion
Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) for electrification) and through competitive
grants.
• Jump-Start: precedents make clear the value of an initial infusion of funds to jump-
start the program. Economic stimulus funds could be a near-term source.
• External Partners: advance external partnerships through engagement of Heartland
FACs regionally, use of intermediaries to protect private data, and consideration of
academic institutions as bridge organizations between the public and private sector
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems
ADAS programs are in the early stage of adoption. Because they provide immediate
benefits and are part of the suite of technologies that lead to automated vehicles, they
are practical and forward-looking. They are a safety technology that reduces cost for
motor carriers and addresses a chief concern of voters in a way they can understand. A
strategic purpose of the program is involvement of rural areas in regional technology
development.
Roadway crashes in rural districts have lower frequency but higher severity than in
urban/semi-urban districts. Risk assessment is hobbled because comprehensive data
about roadway conditions tends to be local and may be absent on a statewide basis.
ADAS capture indicators of risk, such as hard braking and near-crash events, as well as
operating factors like speed, lean and yaw. ADAS providers are a natural, neutral
intermediary who can provide event data, but geographic coverage in rural areas is
likely to be limited.
The Heartland should offer to promote ADAS in rural areas in return for free access to
safety data. However, the great majority of truck lines are small fleets lacking the
financial resources to acquire such systems. Public aid through a new financial assistance
program can be offered and justified, because it puts safer trucks on the road, supplies
public agencies with data for road safety improvements, and proactively mitigates risk
from traffic growth attendant to economic development. Programs like FHWA’s
Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) offer a wide variety of resources to help
states plan and implement highway safety improvement projects using a performance-
driven process. The recently released National Strategic Freight Plan highlights the need
for more and better quality data, stating "Data limitations hinder the ability of public
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Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINAL
agencies to identify problems, prioritize, plan for, and program freight projects, and
manage infrastructure that supports freight mobility.” 1
Financing can be positioned as a small business initiative and modeled on clean truck
programs that help small fleets afford newer trucks. Availability of grants to help
generate seed capital should be explored and could be more successful in regionwide
applications. Although carriers in urban areas should be eligible, publicity should be
geared to rural territory.
Program team composition should involve working groups in such disciplines as finance,
promotion, contracts, and technical partnerships. A key working group should be
concerned with implementation of data-driven road safety investments, coordinated
regionally by the state DOTs, who have existing safety agendas and can help access
federal resources. Not all safety risks are associated with design factors; many are
behavioral and require training, awareness, and adjustment to operating conditions.
Data from ADAS can help target initiatives to address these types of concerns.
Electrification Program
Electric trucks are in the field stage of development and should move into adoption
within five years, but they are worthy of attention now as long-standing barriers to
widespread adoption erode. According to a recent study by Adhikari et al., 2 the barriers
to electric vehicle (EV) adoption can be categorized into five major groupings: technical,
social, economic, infrastructure, and policy. Using an analysis framework and expert
input, their research revealed that infrastructure, policy, economic, and technical barriers
pose more pressing concerns than social barriers.
Economic barriers are declining and are projected to be comparable to internal
combustion engines (ICE) by 2024. 3 Technical barriers are also being overcome with
firms ranging from Tesla and Nikola to traditional firms like Volvo bringing EV
technologies to market. Electric utilities, targeting new market opportunities, are leading
efforts to develop needed charging infrastructure. In 2019, distillate fuel (essentially
diesel fuel) consumption by the U.S. transportation sector was about 47.2 billion
gallons. 4 At an average of $2.50 per gallon, this is a 100-plus billion-dollar market
1
https://www.transportation.gov/freight/NFSP/fullreport
2
Adhikari, Madhusudhan; Ghimire, Laxman P.; Kim, Yeonbae; Aryal, Prakash; Khadka, Sundar B. 2020.
"Identification and Analysis of Barriers against Electric Vehicle Use." Sustainability 12, no. 12: 4850.
3
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2019-02/190225tco_0.pdf, p. 27
4
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/diesel-fuel/use-of-diesel.php
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opportunity for electric power providers. Remaining policy barriers can be removed with
proper planning and collaboration.
Electric trucks appeal to motor carriers because of driver preference and potentially
lower cost. They are suited to drayage in rail-truck, barge-truck and air-truck operations,
making them both an intermodal and an energy technology. The fast-charging
infrastructure necessary to support them must be developed. Public support for such
infrastructure is apt to be driven by demand for electric automobiles, which are on the
road today and will grow in number. Planning for electrification should be initiated now,
however, because preparation and installation of infrastructure will take several years to
start and will require more time to expand. Finally, ineffective methods of revenue
generation to support the transportation network is the Heartland’s number one
weakness, according to stakeholders. EVs require a new pricing system to pay for roads;
the electronic logging devices now required in trucks are a ready-made means of
calculating road usage. Pricing schemes will be more effective and better accepted if
they are regionwide, and upcoming reauthorization of the federal Fixing America's
Surface Transportation (FAST) Act may include pilot programs to develop them.
The major limitation of electric trucks is an operating range currently up to 300 miles.
From Kansas City, MO, all seven of the other Heartland nodes can be reached with a
single charge, but for most nodes only three or four others are in range. Congestion and
slow speeds do not draw significant battery power (stop-and-go traffic actually
increases the regeneration opportunity 5), so congested roads do not reduce the
possible driving distance. However, because there is no secondary fuel source on an EV
truck, having charging stations available along the way will be important as a back-up
for extreme situations (delay, weather, etc.).
The local and surrounding state markets are the top ones by tonnage for most
Heartland nodes, which matches the EV range. The most typical operation would mix
local with round-trip service to surrounding territory within 150 miles. The day cabs
(tractors without sleeper berths) in widespread use among motor carriers are designed
for this class of service, and the electric tractor-trailers coming on stream have them.
The first heavy-duty electric tractors in widespread use will be day cab units in local
operations. While these are chiefly for urban operations, they encompass intermodal
transportation by rail, barge, and air, which is critical to serving the long distance
domestic and global markets that are vital to the Heartland economy. Electric trucks
thus have the potential to play a productive role in both major markets for Heartland
5
https://nacfe.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/06/EVS33_Mihelic_ID257_NACFE_NREL_PrePub_Download.pdf
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 8
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freight – local and long-distance – with the operating ranges that already are becoming
available.
Organizing for electrification will entail establishing working groups with utilities, wind
and solar producers, truck stops, and other developers interested in serving passenger
as well as freight vehicles. Identification of EV corridors on a regional basis should be a
working group task and would lay the groundwork if EV Corridor funding appears in
FAST Act reauthorization. The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Alternative Fuel
Corridor program is establishing a national network of alternative fueling and charging
infrastructure along national highway system corridors. Corridors are identified already
in the Heartland Region, and private firms like Electrify America are building out
charging infrastructure in these corridors:
An additional working group should explore pricing; another should track adoption of
electric trucks by the motor carrier industry. Other possible tracking methods include
asking state FAC member fleets to share their plans and progress and identifying electric
trucks at weigh stations and during safety inspections.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 9
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INTRODUCTION
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The Heartland Region is a national hub for agriculture, manufacturing, and freight
distribution that includes southwestern Illinois and the states of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri,
and Nebraska. Changes in the freight industry are creating a paradigm shift in how all
participants in goods movement (from supplier to end consumer) interface with
transportation infrastructure. To address the need that this shift presents, the Heartland
Region is developing a freight technology plan (Heartland Freight Technology Plan or
HFTP) that will deliver:
• A prioritization framework for new technologies;
• Goals and strategies for harmonizing regulation;
• Recommendations for data management and sharing; and
• A blueprint for action and implementation.
The HFTP project is part of FHWA’s National Economic Partnership (NEP) grant program
and is being developed through a partnership of six Metropolitan Planning
Organizations (MPOs); five state Departments of Transportation (DOTs); the Heartland
Civic Collaborative; and other academic, business, and industry leaders. This NEP grant is
one of only four awards in the program and the first of its kind to incentivize freight
technology assessments and harmonization.
SCOPE AND PURPOSE
This technical memo provides strategic recommendations on how the project area
should approach and assess new freight technologies and their impacts on
transportation agencies. The recommendations come from a thorough exploration of
methods and opportunities for harmonization by examining best practices from recent
technology deployment and building scalable, future-proof best practices for the
Heartland Region based on shared lessons learned and first-hand insight from
deployers and industry leaders.
The approach includes methods and best practices to:
1. Identify emerging freight technologies that are most likely for near to
intermediate term implementation in the region.
2. Identify emerging freight technologies that are most beneficial for near to
intermediate term implementation in the region.
3. Assess how public agencies currently coordinate technology integration practices
and policies with industry advances in freight and supply chain technology.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 10
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINAL4. Identify and analyze opportunities to harmonize regional policies and practices
related to freight technologies.
a. First steps that provide public agencies methods to evaluate these
technologies
b. Policy implications about how transportation agencies do business
c. Policy change to existing business practices
d. Policy development implementation that supports regionalism
e. Infrastructure needs beyond roads and bridges to explore the
infrastructure needs of the future scenarios of tomorrow’s regional
transportation system
5. Conduct a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis to
assess current agency policies and practices in the region related to freight
technology planning, including best practices to support regional technology
deployment.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 11
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALFREIGHT TECHNOLOGY MONITORING
Understanding the emerging freight technologies and their impact on the Heartland
Region is a key competency for public transportation planning agencies across the
region. Public agencies need to stay abreast of the latest technological innovations if
they are to keep pace with modern supply chain and freight movement needs. A Freight
Technology Watch List methodology, designed to identify and capture information
about emerging technologies and trends and to deliver it in a usable form to decision
makers, is a best practice approach for building institutional knowledge on emerging
and potentially disruptive technologies.
In a globalizing world economy, technological differences can explain differences in
economic growth and inter-country income inequality. 6 Effectively backing sound
technology investments is perceived as good for society. According to Daron Acemoglu
and James Robinson in “Why Nations Fail,” a nation’s institutions can make or break its
capacity to promote technological change. Good institutions foster innovation; bad
institutions stifle it. The relationship between effective technology investment and
implementation and economic prosperity most certainly applies to regions as well as
countries. Effective collaboration in the Heartland Region will drive economic growth
and success.
That collaboration must include both private and public entities, including their
perspectives, interests, and input. Public agencies’ missions include providing
transportation infrastructure, promoting safety, and maximizing the throughput and
productivity of the transportation networks. In turn, private sector firms rely on these
publicly provided goods and services to increase supply chain efficiency and
productivity to deliver their products safely, securely, and on time to demanding
customers. This interplay of private and public sector decision making is growing in
importance as the world becomes more connected and dependent on standardized,
complex technologies.
It bears repeating that good institutions foster innovation. Staying abreast of emerging
freight-related technologies helps agencies both prepare for future changes in their area
of control and influence and better coordinate efforts across jurisdictional boundaries. A
defined methodology for monitoring emerging technology and the risks associated with
their readiness improves communication between public agencies; builds key
relationships with private sector technology providers and supply chain organizations;
6
Hülya Kesici Çalışkan, Technological Change and Economic Growth, Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Volume 195,2015, Pages 649-654
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 12
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALand drives economic growth by maximizing the benefits to businesses, individuals, and
society. Most importantly, it provides a means to develop seamless and harmonized
technology implementation across the Heartland Region.
By embracing a common, shared methodology to identify, assess, and monitor
emerging freight technologies, public agencies in the Heartland Region and beyond
take a major step towards fostering effective innovation in freight movement. The
recommended Freight Technology Watch List methodology (Figure 1) follows these five
steps:
1. Create an initial watch list of emerging freight technologies.
2. Assess and rank the list on likely timeline for implementation using the maturity
framework and assessment guide developed by Mid-America Regional Council
(MARC) and Canadian Pacific Consulting Services (CPCS).
3. Assess and rank the list on overall benefits using five dimensions of benefits.
4. Assemble and share final ranked list.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 annually at a minimum.
Figure 1: Freight Technology Watch List methodology
Building on the HFTP project consortium members, public agencies can collaborate in a
proactive technology monitoring process that engages key regional and national
stakeholders in manufacturing, distribution, transportation, technology, academia, and
not-for-profit industry groups. Working together, communication channels are created
and strengthened, the “wisdom of the crowd” is leveraged, and information
dissemination is greater.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 13
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALKey Point – Gathering and synthesizing emerging freight technology information once,
collectively for use by multiple parties (DOTs, MPOs, etc.), promotes harmonization and
builds relationships for knowledge and best practice sharing while reducing the cost and
effort required to gather and promulgate the technology insights.
The end result of such collaborative technology monitoring is a more efficient, informed,
and cohesive approach to selecting technologies to support and the methods to
manage and guide their implementation and operation. With over 400 MPOs and 50
state DOTs across the country, collaborating on difficult and time-consuming tasks like
monitoring emerging freight technologies is a task best shared.
FREIGHT TECHNOLOGIES WATCH LIST
Freight Technology Categories
Everything has a genesis moment. From the
broader HFTP project effort - ranging from
the CPCS Emerging Freight Technology
Maturity Framework and Assessment to
stakeholder interviews, workshops, and
surveys - an initial list of freight technologies
was defined. While there are many individual
freight-related technologies, they can be
grouped into the eight categories as shown
in Figure 2 and described in Table 1.
Appendix A has a listing of each identified
technology by class. A narrative overview of
Figure 2: Freight Technology Watch List Categories
the technologies and classes follows.
Table 1: Freight Technology Descriptions
Freight Description
Technology
Automated Technologies that allow for greater productivity
per labor hour.
Big Data Information technologies specifically for the
processing of large, disparate data sets.
Data, Information, and Technologies to connect, collect, communicate
Communication and analyze data.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 14
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALDigital Supply Chain Information and decision technologies to
improve supply chain operations and planning.
Energy Technologies producing alternative forms of
energy to power the transportation of goods.
Enforcement and Inspection Technologies to improve and enhance
equipment inspection and traffic enforcement.
Intermodalism Technologies that facilitate the linking of
transportation modes.
Safety Technologies that reduce the risk of injury, death
and damage to vehicle and payload.
Automated
Truly autonomous trucking is far in the future. Platooning, a form of automation that
can vary from lower to higher levels of automation, has shown little practical value to-
date. Automated vehicles may or may not require connected vehicle capabilities. As with
many of the emerging freight technologies, alone they are simply building blocks.
Together, they are solutions. The combination of technologies like telematics, artificial
intelligence, and machine vision creates automated vehicle capabilities and innovations.
While there is some skepticism on the viability of platooning as a technology, it is a step
on the path to more automated operations. Locomation is an example of an automated
vehicle firm following this incremental approach, demonstrating the viability of partial
autonomy in a platoon operation, with greater autonomy to come later (see Figure 12).
Beyond being an interim step towards automated operations, platooning may be viable
in dense freight corridors (for example, Kansas City to St. Louis) where truck-rail
intermodal service is impractical.
Big Data
Enterprise data structures and collection mechanisms to collect, analyze, and
disseminate massive amounts of origin-destination information combined with geo-
spatial data are developing and expanding. Private sector firms are collecting “Big Data”
volumes of information daily and they are making this aggregated data available. The
volumes of this data are increasing by orders of magnitude each year. Firms like Inrix
and Streetlight Data are examples of such Big Data technologies applied to
transportation. Sensor or probe data - information collected from in-vehicle devices or
cell phones - underpins most of the new technologies.
Data, Information, and Communication
Telematics solutions, firmly in place across industry, provide the vehicle-to-
vehicle/infrastructure connectivity and create rich data sets. Interactions between
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 15
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALpersonal vehicles and commercial vehicles may lead to CAV freight corridors. Telematics
is a key base technology that drives the efficacy of other technologies like CAV vehicles,
automated inspection and size and weight limit enforcement. Trimble is an example of
a leading telematics provider. Public agencies can help by digitizing road network
attribute data which is important to many other freight technologies.
Digital Supply Chain
Digital supply chains are advancing and will have secondary effects on transportation
infrastructure. For example, visibility to capacity and demand coupled with artificial
intelligence is increasing logistics efficiency (load factors, total miles operated). End-to-
end visibility of shipment/vehicle status is required/expected for both shippers and
carriers, and has value for public sector use.
Many of the data analytics or artificial intelligence technologies are focused on
automation of tasks within a firm to increase operational efficiency and reduce the
human interaction required to transact business (less calls, fewer touches, shorter paths).
Software tools to leverage data about shipment status are growing in popularity, but
this trend will have little direct impact on transportation infrastructure. Fourkites,
Llamasoft, and Descartes are examples of firms providing digital supply chain
technology.
Blockchain has not found wide-spread applications, but may have niche applications in
areas like customs clearing. Private fleets see the need for more of their data to be
available to public agencies. Digitizing infrastructure attributes (lane details, work zone
information, road conditions, etc.) is increasingly important. The Internet of Things,
where objects are connected, sensing, and communicating, is real and happening.
Energy
Transportation is weaning itself from oil, and the electric truck is coming. First, to light
and medium duty fleets, then to the class 8 heavy duty local (< 75-mile) and regional (<
300-mile) markets. In the EV market, hydrogen-fueled electric trucks are three to five
years behind battery powered trucks (or more specifically, tractors, which is the industry
term for the power unit where the driver sits in a combination vehicle pulling a semi-
trailer). Nikola and Tesla are two examples of EV truck makers.
Electric power distribution infrastructure for vehicles needs to be further developed,
standardized, and implemented. Charging stations will become the new truck stops, and
these new truck stops will become significant electric power consumers. Fast fills ups via
hydrogen as the energy delivery method makes it a viable future electric truck option.
Modifications will be required in some areas. Close coordination with electric utilities is
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 16
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALrequired to determine "behind the meter (BTM)" updates needed based on estimates of
how much electric capacity is required to meet fleet power demand. Utilities like
Ameren and Evergy are actively seeking to understand and serve the electric vehicle
fleets of the future.
Natural gas, both compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG), are
being used by carriers as diesel alternatives today but electric is likely win out over the
longer term. The timeframe for this conversion is unclear, but government policy can
influence timing dramatically if desired. Electric freight trains are in the distant future as
the horsepower requirements are too large for current EV technology to meet.
Enforcement and Inspection
Technology can simplify enforcement and monitoring activities, from Hours of Service
(HOS) to toll collection to equipment inspections and weight limits. Drivewyze is a
leading firm in applying these new technologies to transportation uses. Carriers benefit
by eliminating lost time at these inspection/collection points.
Intermodalism
Intermodal transportation is important for the traded commodities grown and goods
manufactured in the Heartland Region. Links between road and rail and waterways are
key connections for global distribution. For cost, reliability (of hauling capacity), and
environmental reasons, intermodal shipping (rail to water, rail to truck, truck to
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) drone, etc.) is growing. Multiple Class I (large) railroads
provide truck-to-rail intermodal service in the region: Union Pacific, Kansas City
Southern, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Canadian National, and Norfolk Southern.
Perhaps the biggest change in transportation logistics is the shift to smaller, more
frequent shipments direct to homes. More transload (transfer and interchange) points
are being developed, moving freight distribution ever closer to the end consumer.
Freight and people movement interactions will increase as a result of this changing
supply chain dynamic (e-commerce, direct-to-consumer, same day delivery). Of course,
Amazon is the best-known firm deploying this strategy today.
This direct-to-customer shift is already creating parking issues in metropolitan areas as
delivery vehicles stop to deliver on nearly every street. Parking strategies and
infrastructure are important considerations. Policies for road sharing are also important.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 17
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALThe Physical Internet concept, 7 where goods are moved in a similar manner to how data
is sent through the Internet, is not seen as a currently practical technology; the loss of
utility from standardizing containers and combining shipments is too great. Hyperloop
is purely a concept and not soon a reality either.
Drones, or UAVs, are more likely to fill a niche in inspection roles or local delivery of
certain goods like pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies, or to remote areas with
few roads. UPS has a new division, Flight Forward, focused on drone delivery solutions.
Safety
Safety technologies are valued by both private and public sector entities. CAV
technology developers view safety as a key benefit to using their technology and are
working to make transportation safer by eliminating human error as much as possible.
ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems) are real and widely accepted by carriers and
drivers. Firms like Bendix and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) like
Freightliner offer ADAS.
ASSESS TECHNOLOGY TIMEFRAME/MATURITY
With a comprehensive watch list established and defined, the process of assessing each
technology’s level of maturity begins. Using the technology maturity framework
developed by MARC and CPCS, insights gleaned from stakeholder interviews and survey
results are used to make an informed assessment of the maturity phase. There are four
Technology Maturity Stages (TMS): concept, laboratory, field, and in practice. An implied
fifth phase is adoption: the widespread application of the technology, the point at which
both early adopters and followers have committed to the technology (see Figure 4).
Once conceived, which technologies advance? Key components that determine which
technologies move forward in their life cycle include:
• Performance. Shippers can be expected to press for the technologies that
improve performance, market position and their bottom lines. Carriers will answer
by deploying new solutions. Consequently, what is demonstrably beneficial can
affect what is probable by encouraging development and speeding adoption.
• Scale. Technologies that can be deployed across a network and affect large
volumes will be more compelling and more readily attract capital. Scale can be
measured in terms of accumulated distance in intercity linehaul movements, or
technologies that support pick-up and delivery throughout an urban area. The
larger the market, the more likely the technology will advance.
7
https://www.picenter.gatech.edu
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 18
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINAL• Cost. Carriers are typically conservative; they will prefer retrofits to new
equipment, they will avoid equipment that could stretch their finances, and many
will wait on the sidelines until they see a sure thing. Price parity with existing
“business as usual” costs minimizes financial risk and favors the technology’s
adoption.
• Commitment. Agencies make long term investments that risk obsolescence and
waste of public resources and political consequences, often yielding slower
decision-making.
Each of these factors is from different viewpoints of the supply chain: shipper, carrier,
government agency, and ultimately individual members of the publics’ needs and wants,
communicated through both their willingness to pay for specific goods and services and
their political responses. Having each key stakeholder’s perspective involved in the
assessment of the technology’s likely future yields a more fully formed assessment.
A technology survey was conducted with project stakeholders to gauge impressions of
technology maturity. Figure 3 summarizes the survey results, showing the range of
assessments in a stock chart format for each of the freight technologies listed at the
bottom. The boxes represent the 95 percent confidence interval of the maturity
estimates while the bars represent the low-to-high range of maturity estimates. The
shorter the box, the more people agreed on the technology’s maturity. The shorter the
blue bar, the less variation in the opinions of the technology’s maturity. A long blue bar
above or below the box may also be interpreted as a qualitative indication of the
direction the opinion of the technology is heading.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 19
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALFigure 3: Project Stakeholders Technology Survey - Results
Figure 4: Technology Maturity Framework with Adoption stage
TMS-5
Adoption
The technology is embraced as a
core technology for both early
adopters and followers.
Telematics and ADAS in trucking
fleets.
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 20
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALAnother look at stakeholder perceptions of technology maturity comes from polling
done during the technology workshop held May 6-7, 2020. Although not exactly the
same, the results are mostly consistent. Information technologies are most mature,
followed by safety technologies. Energy and automation technologies are less mature
than other emerging technologies.
Figure 5: Responses to PollEverywhere Technology Workshop survey question – “Please rank these Emerging
Technologies based on which ones are most likely to be implemented”
Key Stakeholder Engagement
The wisdom of the crowd has long been recognized as a solid approach to decision-
making and priority setting. A good example is the “Stranded on the Island” team-
building game, which aims to show that the collective knowledge and wisdom of a
group outperforms that of any one of the individual members. 8 Given the breadth and
depth of the emerging technology landscape, therefore, the most successful strategy
will be based on a team approach to scan and monitor the emerging technology
landscape.
As part of the HFTP project, a broad set of stakeholders interested in seeing effective
public policy and management to support the adoption of new freight technologies
coalesced.
8
https://shop.humansynergistics.com/survival-simulation-series/reef-survival/
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 21
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALFigure 6: HFTP project stakeholder entities
Using this diverse set of stakeholders, a crowd-sourced process to both assess and
maintain the watch list of technologies is possible.
Economic Implications for Technology Investment – Task 2 Findings Revisited
Not only is information about technical matters of interest but many other factors
contribute to the decisions made about the use of technology. Political, social, or legal
issues can all have an impact. For example, social trends, such as an increasingly aging
population, can create a demand for new kinds of products or services. New methods to
account for the cost of carbon emissions would dramatically change the cost-benefit
equation for certain technologies. Economic sectors and their associated activity within a
region are another determinant for which technologies move towards adoption.
Much of the economic activity within the Heartland Region occurs within the region’s
nodal metropolitan areas given that these are locations of population and employment
concentration. Urban delivery technologies for conventional and e-commerce
applications thus are significant, robotics being one example. While local traffic by
definition does not reach across the region, its issues and opportunities can be
addressed in coordinated fashion. This could range from pilots in multiple locations - or
in one location producing shared results – to policies developed in common that help
technology providers to standardize.
The territories adjacent to Heartland nodes rank as their largest or second largest
trading partner by freight tonnage and value. Therefore, connections between the nodes
and surrounding areas is a strategic consideration. One technology these connections
are suited to is electric trucks because the relatively short travel distances align with the
operating range of contemporary batteries. Adoption of electrics opens up such
questions as power grid capacity for charging stations, and revenue replacement for gas
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 22
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALtaxes. Regional corridors may also be well-suited for connected vehicle technology
combined with semi-autonomous capabilities (truck platooning technology).
Rural areas account for the majority of Heartland territory. In addition to the nodal
connection they depend on and their need for long-distance links for agricultural
products (discussed below), they are low-density but highly seasonal areas for freight
with local connections via farm-to-market roads. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or
drones) have uses in these districts, whether for road inspection or for e-commerce
deliveries to farms. A contemporary task for road inspection is determining the presence
and condition of lane striping, which is relied on by the safety systems in new model
cars and trucks and will be later by driverless vehicles.
Trade between the region’s nodes is relatively weak. The top trading partners by value
are mainly outside of the region. Therefore, long-distance connections between the
region and other parts of the nation are a key consideration and are used by pass
through freight as well. The backbone for these connections is shared multimodal
infrastructure whose condition in one state affects the performance of shipments for
another, and whose operating technology shapes the quality and cost of service.
Technologies ranging from truck platooning to positive train control and its influence on
railroad crew sizes are relevant, as are multistate information systems for uses such as
truck parking availability and regulatory compliance.
The Heartland Region is well known for its agricultural production. These states have
among the highest agriculture production in the nation. However, agriculture
contributes a relatively small share of the region’s GDP. Overall, manufacturing,
wholesale and retail trade represent a larger share of economic activity among freight
dependent industries. While the overall economic contribution of farms does not put
them at the top of the region’s economy in terms of GDP, they are part of an overall
cluster of related industries that are sizeable and important. Furthermore, food and
agriculture products are traded industries, meaning that these industries compete with
other regions and nations. Traded industries often have economic implications beyond
their portion of a region’s GDP so their importance must be maintained. Other related
industries are key elements within the area, including chemical and machinery
manufacturing. Delivered cost is crucial to the competitiveness of Heartland products in
national and global markets. Technological innovations in the lower cost rail and water
modes that have key roles for those markets thus are important; container vessels for
inland waterways are one example that Heartland agencies have been tracking.
Data and data systems are an essential enabler of most new technology. Examples and
issues are numerous; a few of them are: a) driver information systems for
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 23
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALcommunication of conditions and ultimately for vehicle-to-infrastructure networks; b)
private-public data sharing, such as hard-braking locations collected from truck
telematics; c) highspeed data capacity for rural areas, supporting participation in e-
commerce and distributed manufacturing, and for supply chain visibility everywhere.
Key Point – Economic connections will highlight freight corridors where initial
technology investment will have scale and be most viable.
ASSESS TECHNOLOGY BENEFITS
Given that productivity - measured in the benefits achieved relative to the cost to attain
them - is the predominant driver of whether a new process or technology is embraced
by private and public entities, the technology maturity framework developed by MARC
and CPCS identified four major groupings of freight technology benefits as shown in
Figure 7.
Figure 7: Freight Technology Benefits categories and profile
A fifth and final consideration is the cost savings and productivity benefits of the
technology solution. Some technologies have the potential to lower direct costs. ADAS,
electric trucks and intermodal operations are examples of technologies that offer
reductions in operating costs. Fewer crashes means less crash and insurance costs.
Electric trucks are projected to (soon) offer lower total costs of ownership as compared
to diesel trucks. Intermodal solutions reduce transportation and delivery costs.
Technology investments are rarely made without such a cost-benefit or return-on-
investment analysis. Rarely is the analysis completely objective, and assumptions and
subjective opinions play a large role in final investment decisions. Having a pre-
determined benefit list helps investment analyses to be both thorough and consistent
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 24
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALby considering all relevant potential benefits and following a rubric for benefit
assessments.
Certainly, no corporate Chief Financial Officer would approve an investment without a
thorough cost-benefit analysis. For both private and public entities investing in new
technology, costs can be estimated with reasonable accuracy, but benefits are less
certain. Freight-related safety, environmental, connectivity and reliability benefits are
estimated with varying degrees of confidence and precision. Thus, the tangible nature of
cost savings and productivity improvements make the cost reduction benefit category
the most significant of the five benefit categories in most investment decision-making
processes.
Identifying Technologies with Public Benefit
While freight transport contributes significantly to the productivity of the U.S. economy,
it also involves sizable costs to society. Those costs include wear and tear on roads and
bridges; delays caused by traffic congestion; injuries, fatalities, and property damage
from crashes; noise; greenhouse gas emission impacts; and other harmful effects from
exhaust emissions. No one pays those external costs directly; neither freight haulers, nor
shippers, nor consumers. 9 Investment analysis and Figure 8: Total U.S. Greenhouse Gas
decision-making by firms does not account for the Emissions by Economic Sector in 2018
public benefit of new technologies.
The impact of burning diesel fuel is a case in point.
Transportation emissions are the largest source of
United States greenhouse gas emissions 10, and account
for 28 percent of all emissions. Greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions from transportation primarily come from
burning fossil fuel for our cars, trucks, ships, trains, and
planes. Over 90 percent of the fuel used for
transportation is petroleum based, which includes primarily gasoline and diesel. Diesel
fuel also emits particulate matter (soot) and other undesirable pollutants (NOx).
9
Austin, David; Congressional Budget Office Working Paper Series Congressional Budget Office
Washington, DC, Pricing Freight Transport to Account for External Costs, 2015-03,
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/50049
10
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 25
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALA 2010 study by the National Academy of Sciences 11 reported the vehicle sector
produced $56 billion in health and other non-climate-change damages, with $36 billion
from light-duty vehicles and $20 billion from heavy-duty vehicles. Significant benefits
are not being considered in certain technology investment decisions. Few carriers
evaluating return on investment from alternative energy technologies will include a
benefit from reduced illnesses related to fuel emissions, yet society will benefit greatly
from these improvements.
Public agencies are in the best position to estimate the hidden, public benefits of new
freight technologies. Early identification of hidden benefits can help shape public policy
to favor the advancement of technologies with large public benefit and avoid the
“tragedy of the commons” 12 pitfalls associated with technologies offering significant
external (to the investing firm) benefits.
Benefits Assessment
Using interview and workshop input, each technology can be subjectively assessed on
the level of benefit it will deliver to firms and society in general. This informed and
aggregated assessment can be used to rank technologies based on the total impact
they offer. With limited resources to invest, picking the portfolio of technologies that
delivers the most value (benefits per dollar invested) while supporting regional
economic and social priorities is the objective. Figure 9 is a representative guide for the
areas of likely benefit by technology type.
Even when potential benefits may be significant, firms are unlikely to invest in a new
technology if the cost, both to implement and to maintain it, are greater than the
expected benefits. Economies that make efficient decisions – those where the benefits
per dollar invested are significantly more than the costs to achieve them – succeed and
thrive.
As shown in Figure 10, polling from the Technology workshop provided stakeholder
input as to which technologies offer the most benefit. While subjective, it shows the
importance of the emerging data technologies and the promise of energy and safety
technologies to the Heartland Region.
11
National Research Council 2010. Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production
and Use. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/12794.
12
https://www.britannica.com/science/tragedy-of-the-commons
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 26
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALFigure 9: Freight transportation benefits from adoption of listed technology types
Figure 10: Responses to PollEverywhere Technology Workshop survey question – “Please rank these Emerging
Technologies based on which ones will deliver the most overall benefit”
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 27
Emerging Technology Technical Memo – FINALKey public sector goals are to provide safe transportation systems with the necessary
infrastructure and capacity to keep goods and people moving efficiently. With those
three goals in mind – Safety, Infrastructure, and Throughput – an alignment of
technology and goals helps match priorities with emerging technologies that enable
and support each key goal.
Figure 11: Key public sector goals
Safety Infrastructure Throughput
Safety Data/Information/Communication
Automation Energy Automation
Intermodalism Intermodalism Intermodalism
Further Discussion of Freight Technology Characteristics
Automation technologies rely on data, information and communication technologies
supported by public agencies. So, while public agencies will not directly invest in
Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) technology, support of the connecting
technologies (road signage and markings, digitized road network data, work zone
information, right-of-way support for communication links) by agencies is needed.
Ensuring that these connecting technologies are harmonized and standardized across
jurisdictions is important for the success of automation technologies.
Improved safety is a benefit to both public and private sectors. Eliminating human errors
will reduce crashes and the direct and indirect costs associated with them. As the
automated vehicles become connected extensions of the supply chain and
transportation systems, private firms will see competitive advantages from the increased
visibility to granular supply chain information - like where is the shipment now and what
is its estimated arrival date and time.
More modest benefits are expected from reduced environmental impacts from fewer
crashes and the more energy-efficient operations from automated, optimized
operations. Fuel costs are reduced for private firms while the public benefits from fewer
greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous spills. With the ability to operate automated
equipment more hours of the day, reliability benefits also are likely. A human driver can
operate a truck less than half the day, generally during daytime hours. In a more
automated scenario, the truck can operate nearly around the clock, giving private firms
the ability to increase productivity while smoothing traffic patterns across the entire day.
This increases public infrastructure throughput without additional road-building
expense. Investment in enhancements such as more accurate and visible road striping,
signalization updates, and embedding sensors in roads or street signs to facilitate
HEARTLAND FREIGHT TECHNOLOGY PLAN 28
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