View the May 20, 2020 seminar recording
Jennifer Symoun
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will moderate today's seminar. Today's topic is SHRP2 C20 Project Spotlight: The Development And Implementation of a Ten County Freight Model.
Before I go any further, I do want to remind you to call into the teleconference for the best audio quality. If you are listening to the audio over the computer and experience any issues, I am unable to fix them as audio quality will vary based on your network connection, computer, speakers, and other factors. Please also keep in mind if you are calling into the teleconference for the audio, you will need to mute your computer speakers or else you will be hearing your audio over the computer as well.
Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer. If during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the chat area. Please make sure you send your question to "Everyone" and indicate which presenter your question is for. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will start off the question and answer session with the questions typed into the chat box. We will also take questions over the phone if time allows and I will provide instructions on how to do so once we get to that point.
The PowerPoint presentations used during the seminar are available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. The presentations will also be available online within the next few weeks, along with a recording and a transcript. I will send a link to the recording in the next day or so and will also notify all attendees once all materials are posted online.
Talking Freight seminars are eligible for 1.5 certification maintenance credits for AICP members. In order to obtain credit for today's seminar, you must have logged in with your first and last name or if you are attending with a group of people you must type your first and last name into the chat box.
PDH certificates are also available for Talking Freight seminars. To receive 1.5 PDH credits, you will need to fill out a form. Please see the link in the chat box. Certificates will be emailed one week after the seminar. A seminar agenda has been included in the file download box for those who need to submit an agenda to their licensing agency.
Finally, I encourage everyone to please also download the evaluation form from the file share box and submit this form to me after you have filled it out.
Today we'll have three presenters:
Our first presentation will be given by Fredrick Haith, a Planning Engineer operating out of The North Carolina Department of Transportation's (NCDOT) Division 9 Office in Winston-Salem, NC. Prior to joining NCDOT in 2018, Fredrick was the Winston-Salem Metropolitan Planning Organization's Transportation Planning Development Coordinator. He graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master's degree in Freight and Logistics.
Fredrick Haith
Thank you, Jennifer. The close proximity of the cities Burlington, Graham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point in North Carolina's Piedmont region has led to the area being known as the Piedmont Triad; a region home to more than 1.6 million residents. The Piedmont Triad has been increasingly focusing on freight transportation planning over the last several years with the loss of textile manufacturing and a shift to the freight and goods movement industry. Omitted from the map is the Burlington-Graham area, which is located in this area right over here (points on slides).
The Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation manages the regional modeling program in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Transportation's Planning Department, and the Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, and Burlington-Graham MPOs. The model utilizes a traditional four-step trip-based model process consisting of four basic steps: trip generation, trip distribution, mode choice and traffic assignment. The model is developed on TransCAD, a transportation planning software platform which is a geographical information system designed specifically for the use by transportation professionals to store, display, or manage analyzed transportation data. The model uses a typical trip-based process that results in a few truck-related issues. Number one, truck trips are not strictly based on employment or commodities, which are important. Two, the interaction between distribution centers and businesses are missed. And three, trips aren't linked, and each trip has no memory. To resolve this issue, we focused on converting the freight movements to a tour-based model. The tour-based model is a sequence of trips connecting activities that starts and ends at the same location. The tour-based models team tend to be regional in scope, which fits in nicely with our regional model. Advanced freight models accomplish many different tasks or initiatives. They represent the characteristics of firms and shipments, supply chains, links to buyers and suppliers, they capture trip chaining, flow of trucks or tours throughout the day, and they differentiate freight from commercial vehicle shipments vs. goods and services.
Our advanced freight model is comprised of three phases. I will focus mainly on phase I and my colleagues would dive deeper into the other two phases. SHRP2 is a product of the Federal Highway administration. It was introduced to the model tea, by one of its members from NCDOT. We all took part in the submission of the application, which focused on phase I of the initiative. I volunteered to serve as the primary point of contact performing quarterly reports and invoicing duties.
Phase I of these models was one of seven projects selected under the SHRP2 initiative. The project identified freight model design and future data collection needs for the region, as well as identified, tabulated, and surveyed freight facilities to support of development of our tour-based truck model. To identify the modeling needs the project team first held a workshop to gain an understanding of the vision for the freight model, and later completed interviews with e peer MPOs to learn from their experiences in freight modeling. The project team analyzed and combined the information from several common data sources to develop a freight node database. Finally, the project team supplemented the freight node database with information collected through a comprehensive survey effort targeting freight facilities in the region. Graphical representation of the freight nodes, distribution centers, intermodal facilities, major shippers and retail.
Here is an example of the data contained within each freight node in the database. I will not go over every field name, but this is there for your resource at a later time. Project data sources, broken down by activity, data source, and data description. And the project team. This entire effort Phase I and ongoing Phase 2 and 3 is a collaborative effort. Even though I was the point person for the initiative it was very much a group effort. With all of the reporting and invoicing being run through the entire group before I submitted to others for review and processing. The model team in and of itself has been one of the best experiences of my career going on 12+ years. I can honestly say I have enjoyed my time working with the group. Each and every member has something different to bring to the table. Overall, it has been a fantastic experience.
All of the information contained in my presentation can be located at various websites. The Advanced Freight Model and other modeling information can be found on the PART's website. The SHRP2 case study, I was lucky enough to find online. The case study itself is 8 to 10 pages and contains lots of useful information, more detail than I can cover in a presentation. Then there is the SHRP2 website, as well as a link to the Winston-Salem MPO 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. As I mentioned before High Point, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, all the MPOs worked together and they decided to approach freight on common ground. So, if you look at Winston-Salem's 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan compared to High Point's, you will see similarities; it was a group effort, and to keep with the regional theme of things, they all look the same for the most part. And last but not least, Mr. Pandy. He was my primary point of contact during the SHRP2 initiative. He made the process very easy to understand and seamless with no hiccups. And once again, I want to thank him for making the experience as memorable and easy as possible. That concludes my presentation.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you, Fred. Our next presentation will be given by John Kim, a Travel Demand Modeler with the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation (PART). John has 23 years of professional experience in Traffic Operation & Engineering and Transportation Planning, working on projects such as travel demand modeling, traffic impact study, long range transportation planning, bikeway planning, highway capacity analysis, traffic simulation, and traffic signal design and analysis.
John Kim
Thanks, Jennifer. Good afternoon, everyone. It is a great pleasure for this opportunity to introduce PTRM. Today my presentation will cover two parts. The first part I am going to quickly go through, an overview of the model the Piedmont Triad Regional Model. Then I will move over to the tour-based freight model systems, which is the main focus of my presentation about how the freight model works and what information you need to input data, and what you can get from the output. And I am also going to introduce a utilization tool at the end of my presentation.
PTRM's model is built to follow a four step model, which is a very well-known operational process with feedback loop. The model region is the Piedmont Triads area in North Carolina. There are nine counties involved, entirely or partially, as the model region. Also, four MPO areas: Burlington-Graham, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point. These four MPO areas are the model regions important to maintain and develop our regional traveling model. Total number of TAZs are 1932, and the area size is 2,352 mi.². The highway network comprised of 21,428 links which are freeways, arterials, and collectors and so on. Data set attributes including number of lanes, facility type, area type, speed limit, divided/undivided, left turn lanes. [Indiscernible] which represent different types of facilities from current base year and future year as well. We also have four local transit systems and one express bus system in the Triad area. The attributes within the transit systems are service time headway, fare prices, tour time, and bus stops. Those are utilized for modeling transit system within PTRM.
Obviously, there is subsequent data, such as population/household, employment by industry type, number of K-12/university students, and average income and number of car ownership by households. Those are utilized as socioeconomic input data for the PTRM. The final output for PTRM. The model gives you traffic flow of each link on the network, as shown on the slide. Also, intersection and turning volumes.
Now let's move on to the tour-based freight model which is the main focus of my presentation. As Fred mentioned earlier, we have been developing a tour-based freight model for the past 6 years for a 3 phase study. The tour-based freight model I am introducing today is in Phase 2. I especially want to thank [Indiscernible] who contributed to the development of this model. Phase 3 is currently still going on. During the Phase 3 we are going to complete a truck driver survey for the calibration of a tour-based freight model, because the main core models are borrowed from other regions in Phase 2. So, please keep this in mind. Hopefully you can get a picture of the tour-based freight model and learn how it works and what [indiscernible] technical characteristics inside of a tour-based freight model is in there.
First of all, I'd like to share with you what made us think about the need of the tour-based freight model. There are several key needs to why the tour-based model was needed. First, there was the need for public information on transportation, particularly focusing on rural freight movement and its role in economy growth in our region. Also, current tools tour-based modeling in place has limitations in the ability to model the effects of long-distance truck movements to and from the region, how they interact with local freight distribution, and the complexities of local freight movement for both goods delivery and service activity. And other need was that truck is one of the transportation modes which contributes a significant portion of transportation system emissions. So, our region had the desire that we capture the effects of transportation system for truck travel. Another need was in the case there is planned development that disrupt freight movements, the impact is significant on our communities. We need an analysis tool to analyze the impacts of development on freight travel.
To address the needs I just mentioned, there are some things that a freight model has to have to work properly. For example, changes over time in the freight flows to and from a region can influence the demand for long distance truck travel. Also, the need for additional long truck movements to facilitate local deliveries and pickups. So, the model incorporates both movements and long distance flows. The model also moves from a traditional trip-based approach to a more realistic tour-based approach, where travel patterns of trucks are modeled [indiscernible] that dispatchers and drivers are developing.
So, the model needs to be a multi-layer model where freight flow and delivery vehicle movements at the local level are informed by and changed at the upper level. Technically, in terms of demand for truck travel, there are two major market segment, which are freight movement and non-freight commercial vehicle movement that provide service. This model needs to address these two different types of freight travel. If the long-distance and truckloads are integrated with PTRM, the truck movements inside the model region are influenced by statewide, national, and ultimately global freight flows. The geographic scope of freight movement in this regard needs to be addressed in the model as well. Now, let's take a look at how the freight model is incorporated with the passenger model.
This picture shows the overall model system of PTRM and how we integrated the tour-based freight model. Inside the gray box on the left representing our passenger model which estimates personal trips by auto and other modes. Then onto the right inside the red dotted box, tour-based freight model structures are illustrated. There are multiple components within the freight model, which I want to share with you today. I particularly want to focus on the four core models inside the orange boxes, because these play a main role in making the freight model work. They are Firm Synthesis Model, Freight Demand Model, Commercial Vehicle Touring Model, and Freight Truck Touring Model. Here are the base elements I would like to share with you for a better understanding of what I will present. In freight modeling you want to know how many businesses are in your area and what type of business they are. Are they producing or providing service? How the travel patterns of trucks are given to different purposes. So, this information is generated and processed to give you the output you're looking for at the end of the freight model. Once the entire freight model is completed, at the end of the tour-based freight model, trips lists are generated and aggregated into zone trips by time periods which can be assigned to the original highway network in the PTRM along with two tables from passenger model.
Now, let's go inside the freight model. The first component in the freight model is the Firm Synthesis Model. What this model does is to create a list of business establishments within the model region that will be used as data for both Freight Model and the Commercial Vehicle Touring Model. There are two sub-models inside the Firm Synthesis Model. The Scale Employee Sub-model; they import point data from the process database which basically describes the business establishments in the model region by TAZ or industry code and firm size. This is going to be scaled and sampled to match the TAZ level employment data by industry type that PTRM categorized. As a result, it generates a list of business establishments which TAZ identified by industry type and category size. The next of the Simulate Commodity sub-models, the business establishments that produce commodities are allocated one production commodity among several commodities of the business establishments with their NAICS code that they produce. So, the output from this sub-model component is production commodity using SCTG, which is Standard Classification of Transporting the Goods, codes added to each of the business establishments. This sub-model produces a list of synthetic business establishments within the model region.
Now, let's take a look at what is provided in the output data. This screenshot illustrates the Firm Synthesis output, actually part of the output table and each cell gives you the information about business TAZ and where each business is located, FIPS county code, Industry 7 particularly which is PTRM defined employment category, and number of employees in SCTG code.
Let's move on to another component, the Freight Demand Model, which is particular model on a long-distance model of annual freight shipments within the model region. It starts with ???[indiscernible] which either shipper or receiver of the commodity. The route each are assigned either a direct pick-up or delivery or as a part of a peddling tour. Let's look through each of the sub-models to find out how the freight demand model processes. The FAF commodity flow database contains freight movement between domestic FAF zones. These zones correspond to ???[indiscernible] defined by commodity flow survey. However, the model region does not align exactly with the nearby FAF zone geographies. The commodity flows need to be disaggregated to identify the flows associated with the model regions. In this process, total employment by industry is used to proportionately allocate commodity flows from FAF zone level to the model region. Next, freight flows and input/output data from the US BEA, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, are used to develop the annual demand of inbound/outbound shipments. Some of the demand is shipments into and out of the model region. The remainder of freight flows are within the regional movements between business establishments in the region.
So, the next step, Trade Partners model, establishes the pairings of businesses or transactions that trade the shipments. And in the next step, Freight Flow Allocation model, locates the freight shipment demand to the pairs of trade partners. In the Mode Path Assignment steps, allocated commodity flows between shipper and the business establishments are assigned to the shipment modes such as truck, rail, and air based on the mode share from the FAF commodity flow database. The Shipment Size model rates annual demand of the business establishments into individual shipment deliveries using a cross-classification model and using the characteristics of commodity and travel. The Distribution Channel model determines the level of annual commodity shipments between matched pairs of distributors and consumers will be direct or use the local distribution centers on their way into or out of the model regions. The Ports of Entry/Egress model shipments transported into or out of the model region are assigned to the appropriate intermodal transfer facility or external station within the model region. The shipments may be assigned to a station from where they enter or exit the model region. Also, shipments entering or exiting the model region by rail or air will be assigned a rail yard or an air terminal point of entry or egress. The Distribution Center Selection model, for shipment whose distribution channel involves distribution centers, a specific distribution center in the model region is assigned. And then the choice of the distribution center comes from the Triad Regional Freight Mode Database from Phase I which indicates commodity tapes handled at each facility.
[Indiscernible] eight sub-models in the Freight Demand Model generates a list of freight shipments representing a [indiscernible] of freight movement in the region as output as shown on the slide. The table in the slide shows part of output which includes identifiers for the business establishments who are trading, the commodity and the weight and annual number of shipments, and the details of the shipment routing such as where it enters or leaves the region and which distribution center is transferred.
As mentioned earlier, there are two major market segments in the Freight Model we're dealing with: freight movement and non-freight commercial vehicle movement. The Commercial Vehicle Touring Model is addressing the non-freight commercial vehicle movement. So, it simulates our truck and light duty vehicle movements based on the demand for services and goods, and then creates truck routes to facilitate the provision of those the services and the residential delivery of goods through the 7 sub-models as shown on the slide on the right hand side.
In the first sub-mode, the establishment type model is tagging establishments in the model region with an industry type and a label that indicates whether the establishment generates goods or provides services or does both. For example, if your business is a goods only producer you are permitted to generate goods delivery and pick-up only as a function of residential demand and such as the other service proposed. Then the next sub-model, Simulated Scheduled Stops, predicts one day's worth of scheduling stops for each by TAZ using a count model formulation. Based on analysis of truck driver data scheduled stops are grouped into 3 market segments which are stops for goods travel and/or pick up, or stops for services, or stops for meetings. For each market segment case of generation model predicts a number of scheduled stops for establishments as function of zonal households and travel impedances as well as establishment industry type and size. And then for each stop the vehicle assignment sub-model assigns one of 3 commercial vehicle types: light vehicle, medium truck, and heavy trucks. As a function of the establishment industry type, the distance between establishments and stops to be served and stops to be served, and the stop's purposes. . And then, Expected Stop Duration Model is applied to all schedule stops. For each stop, expected stop duration is drawn from a smooth empirical distribution of observed stop distribution for each stop type based on truck driver data. To simulate tours and routing for each establishment to stop [indiscernible] model in exclusive scheduled goods, service, and meeting stops for feasible for commercial vehicle tours.
Once the scheduled stops and their durations are generated for a given vehicle and establishment, they are put into groups to be serviced by vehicle tour. Given a set of scheduled stops and their locations on a tour establishments locations, the Stop sequencing sub-model use the traveling salesman problem algorithm to determine the sequence of stops on the tour. So, the sequencing account for scheduled goods, service, and meeting stops only; not the intermediate stops, which are in subsequent steps. Also, the model predicts arrival time of day at the first scheduled stop on a tour. The final step, Intermediate Choice sub-model predicts whether there are any intermediate stops between scheduled stops by simulating whether the driver makes one or more intermediate stops prior to each scheduled groups or tour stop or prior to returning to the establishments to complete the tour. Basically, intermediate stops can be a break for meals or vehicle services such as refueling and personal business. Any additional intermediate stops can be added to a trip list.
Now, let's take a look at the output from the Commercial Vehicle Touring Model. The output gives you a list of commercial vehicle tours and trips within the model region. That includes one day of commercial vehicle movement. In the table the list describes the details of one trip and one tour is represented by a set of rows, which are trips of the same tour. The details of each trip provides are business identifier, type of vehicles, tour and tour identifiers, where each trip starts and finishes with TAZ ID, and the activity at the stop, the timing of trip arrival and departure, travel time, and distance and duration at the stop.
Now, let's move on to the Freight Truck Touring model. Consisting of 10 sub-models the Freight Truck Touring model simulates the movements of shipments to and from buyers and sellers and any intermediaries within the model region. Once the location of the demand for shipment deliveries or pickups has been established, the general approach to building tours is a very similar to that is used in the Commercial Vehicle Touring Model. That first step, the Daily Sample sub-model, creates a single day of freight movements by using the list of annual shipment contracts from the Freight Demand Model. Once the shipment contract gets filled and they simulate the day, then the regional vehicle and peddling choice is simulated by going through the next 3 sub-models. The regional vehicle alternatives are light, medium, and heavy trucks. Then the peddling choice is the choice of whether the freight is on a peddling tour or not. Let's take a moment to figure out what peddling choice means.
Here you can see two pictures. An example of a peddling tour of internal-to-external and external-to-internal freight movement. In the case of internal-to-external freight movement on the left hand side, the blue lines from seller to the port of egress is the direct trip between those parts. And when you stop by the distribution center, it is this orange line, and this trip is called indirect, still without a peddling choice. If you take a look at the grey dotted line, it is making a peddling pick-up tour from the seller, ending at the distribution center, and then to the port of egress. The same things with the external-to-internal freight movement on the right-hand side. The grey lines representing a tour with a peddling choice from the port of entry to the distribution center and then to the buyer. The same is true for the internal-to-internal freight movement and making a peddling choice between seller and buyer. Due to the relationship between the choices of vehicle and tour peddles, vehicle peddling choices are jointly simulated for each of the shipments, because shipments' movements involved in a peddling tour are used in the stop clustering and stop sequence steps. The shipment movements are involved as a simple out-and-back, one-stop tours that ends at the buyer, seller, or distribution center as appropriate. These tours are eventually combined with [indiscernible] paddling tours.
Going back to the Freight Truck Touring Model. The expected stop duration model is applied to all pick-up and delivery stops, that are part of peddling or non-peddling tours, as well as any intermediate stops on the tour. For each stop, expected stop duration in minutes is drawn from an empirical distribution of the stop distributions. And for each distribution center, the stop clustering model groups scheduled pick-up and delivery stops into feasible freight truck tours based on vehicle type, spatial proximity, expected stop duration, and vehicle capacity. Although the same method of clustering used for Commercial Vehicle Touring Model is used, there are two notable differences I want to show you. The first, the anchor point for tours for the freight truck touring model is clustering distribution centers rather than individual establishments. Because the distribution centers are always the origination of tours on the first trip and the destination of tours on the last trip. Secondly, the total volume of the shipments being peddled on the tours is also considered in the stop clustering process. So, the stop clustering is subject to time and vehicle capacity constraints. The rest of the sub-models are using the same algorithms and models used in the Commercial Vehicle Touring Model, so the process of each sub-model task is the same as explained earlier.
Now, let's take a look at the output table of the Freight Truck Touring Model. The output is a list of the Freight Truck Touring Model trips within the model region. That includes one day of freight truck movements like the Commercial Vehicle Touring Model. Each row gives you the details for one trip, as one tour is represented by a set of rows of trips. The information about district ID for the distribution center where the tour start is located, whether or not the trip is peddled, tour and trip identifiers, anchor TAZ where each trip stops and finishes, and so on. Those are all available as the outputs for the Freight Touring Model. These are all about how to use the Freight Model Process to estimate freight travel.
There is another tour I want to introduce. PTRM Tour-based Model has a dashboard for the visualization of the input and output of a freight model. Again, once the entire tour-based model run is complete freight trip lists are generated and aggregated into TAZ trips by time period and then assigned to the regional highway network in the PTRM along with passenger trip tables for the execution of the remaining procedure of PTRM.
Here is our visualization tool, the dashboard tool we call it, that provides a high-level summary of the analysis with interactive tabulations, charts, and maps. The dashboard is available from internet browsers from anywhere that you want to share any regional scenario with others by the internet. Let's go to the dashboard to see how it looks. On the front page it gives you the model run date, run time, total freight shipments, total freight truck tours, and so on. As I presented earlier, there are [indiscernible] the outputs in each step. This model gives you the number of industry by firms and employment type and firms by size and employment size. That information is available. If you go to shipments from the Freight Demand Model you can see the charts for movement type and mode, the shipment size by movement type. All of those implements in the charts are available. The tonnage data is also available. And if you go to freight truck tours, you can view the liable times of distribution by vehicle type; light, medium, and heavy vehicles. The total length mileage estimate is available; those estimate the trip lengths by vehicles. Particular information is available in charts. And for commercial vehicles, the same kind of charts are also available. But this is the visualization tool from our Tour-based Freight model. This is all I have. Let me close my PPT and turn it over to Jennifer. I appreciate your interest and time joining us and also to the FHWA for this opportunity.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you, John. Our final presentation will be given by Mark Kirstner, the Director of Planning for the Piedmont Authority Regional Transportation. Mark currently focuses on transit and freight planning, and equitable, effective transportation infrastructure that supports sustainable development patterns. He is member of the American Institute of Certified Planners with 33 years of experience in transportation and land use planning. He co-founded the Transit Alliance of the Piedmont, a transit advocacy group, and has spoken at numerous conferences on the topics of public engagement, mobility systems, planning and equity. His latest initiative, in cooperation with the Piedmont Triad's four Metropolitan Planning Organizations is the integration of scenario planning into the transportation planning process.
Thank you, Jennifer and good morning and afternoon to everyone. I want to primarily focus on Phase 3 of our overall freight project. But to do that I wanted to go back and recap for a moment some of the elements and things that Fred and John shared. Way back when we first started this effort, we knew it was going to be a long time to get to where we needed to be and that it needed to be done in multiple phases. This was partly because of the complexity of building a tour-based freight model, but also funding that is available.
So, Phase I was about the existing conditions in our area. That was funded through the SHRP2 grant, as Fred mentioned. And the two basic things that came out of it were the data points for 968 different facilities, which were essentially collected through phone book, phone calls, Google Earth, and all sorts of external types of data and methods of collecting that. Then there were 150 individual surveys that were done to get more specific information about a subset of all of those facilities. Lessons learned with this particular effort - there was difficulty in collecting those 150 detailed surveys. So, when we went to individual facilities asking for their assistance, the third-party consultant ended up having to hire people to go back and go door to door with those 150 businesses and get in someone's face, so to speak, to get them to complete the survey. That was one thing that perhaps was expected a little bit. We will talk a little more later on about the difficulties of collecting data. And then one of the nice things that immediately came out of the data was that not only did we have a great data set, but our MPOs took some of the comments and some of the data and went ahead and mapped out areas that the freight industry was saying were problems within our region. That was one of the questions on the survey. So, we were able to take that data and get some immediate output from it. But now, as you can see, when I talk about Phase 3, all of these 986 data points are now several years old.
So, we jumped into Phase 2, which was the model development. In our case it was funded by a North Carolina Department of Transportation special project in research fund, or SPR funds as we refer to them. And John went into detail about how the model is embedded within our overall travel demand model that operates and functions separately. It needs its own set of data and information. And I think, to hone in a little more on the complexity of the data that is needed to run this tour-based model, gets into Phase 3 and some of our trials. And again, just as a review, the red, green, and blue lines are a tour that a freight delivery truck or other type of freight truck takes. That is what we were trying to get to. The purple lines represent what our model is able to do currently. And that is, it still took into account truck travel, but not to a tour-based level.
So, that brings us to the fun part of Phase 3 and the actual data collection to run the model. As I'm sure many of you are aware, there are numerous existing data sources out there related to vehicle movements; not only freight movement, but also personal vehicles. There is also a lot of reporting that freight companies and industries and truck drivers already have to report both at the state level and the federal level. But again, based upon the complexity of information that is needed to have a fully robust tour-based freight model, that level of information is just not there from existing sources. So, there had to be some sort of additional way to be able to collect that information and data. And our third-party contractor used a smart phone application. So, essentially a truck driver could download an application onto their smart phone, start it at the beginning of their run for the day, let it run throughout the day, and then at the end of the day answer some questions. Is sounds pretty simple in today's technology world. You can see some of the information and questions that are being asked as it relates to that particular trip. But again, this got down to the level of, "Was this segment of a trip to your lunch break or was there other some sort of break that required that truck drivers are required to make?" to "This leg of the trip was a delivery." or "This leg of a trip was a pick-up." So, very detailed information, some of which could be gotten from existing information, but most of it could not.
So, there were two elements that were surveyed as part of Phase 3 to collect the data. One was an establishment survey. There was an effort to reach out and collect information from 200 different establishments that were predetermined and selected based upon the types of commodity and type of freight business that they operated. And these were basically handled by calling and interviewing people, and a call center was used to do this. As you can maybe imagine, making that direct phone call, asking someone for their participation, we got 100% of what we needed. We were looking for 200 establishment surveys and we got 200. There was also an option to complete this establishment survey online. So, the phone call could be very short, "Yes, thank you for participating. Here is the online tool to fill out the survey" or they took them by hand. At the same time, at the close of the establishment survey they indicated to whomever they were talking to that there was also a truck driver survey which got down into the details of individual truck tours for a series of days. And several companies were identified that said they would participate in that truck driver survey. But, as you will see, some of those did participate and some did not.
So, for the truck driver survey, again, the level of detail and the information being collected, it was necessary to get to a state where we were collecting every bit of data from them from their tour for that particular day. We also needed a sample of drivers from different businesses. From Phase 1, we knew of the variety and types of freight facilities and industries that there were in the region. So, that gave us the insight in to be able to say, ok, we need to collect this type of vehicle or these types of commodities carried. So, if it could have been completely random and tried getting a number of surveys completed that would be one thing. But, again, it had to be based upon the type of truck travel within our region. So, this is where things got complicated. I would say in Phase 1 went smoothly, other than having to go door to door to get some of those 150 surveys, that was a bit of a challenge. Phase 2 went very smoothly with the development of the model. And Phase 3 you are going to see we are still not complete.
So, our first time out, there were 8,000 survey invitations mailed out. We included a letter from a deputy secretary with NCDOT. There were 10 on-site in person intercepts. And there was an incentive offered; if a driver completed the survey for three days, they received a $40 incentive. We attended several different events where people from the freight industry were present to try to talk up the survey and get people to participate. And then there was also a mail out, an email follow-up, to those 8,000 invitations. But we also had a smaller, more targeted list of about 350 industries that we paid additional attention to. Of course, there were all sorts of collateral materials developed; there was a website, there were flyers of information that could be handed out to people trying to get them to participate.
We did not get the results that we needed with that first salvo of trying to get the surveys completed, so we reconnected with companies that indicated during the establishment survey that they would have drivers complete the surveys; we did that with two different emails. We held a webinar and recorded that and then posted that webinar and video on the website. That was in effort to try to get people to look at it and it explained the whole freight project and the benefits of it. We also started to shift to an in-your-face type of method. Kind of back to where we were with Phase I, but we did not have the capacity or resources to knock on doors in this case, but we did try contacting our triad chambers. And I would say we had very good success in one particular occasion with the Kernersville chamber. That chamber President understood the value and importance of the survey and the entire freight project. They have several large manufacturers and freight industry partners there in Kernersville. She was able to get several of our big freight companies in the room with me. I felt we had a great interaction. I felt that they understood the benefits of developing this freight model. And there were some pledges that they would get drivers to participate in the survey, and I felt it was mission accomplished. But no-one from that meeting ended up filling out any of the driver surveys or having their drivers do such. There was some follow-up after that, but again, we did not get any. So, we had our MPOs reach back out to our TAC and TCC members with our MPOs. Some of our TAC members were even in the freight industry and heard it directly from the MPOs, but they did not participate in the driver survey. We were able to get one of our cities to have their field operations people to complete the survey. Then the last thing you see there in this bulleted list is I had a friend who used to work at PART but is now driving a truck. He understood it, he took the survey, and he pledged to get 10 or 12 of the people that he knew to complete the survey, but they did not.
So, this is where we are today and where we needed to be. Up at the top in the red are the number of drivers we had sign-up, the trip data that they provide, and then the number of days. So, our target that we felt we had to hit for this tour-based freight model to be productive is 200 drivers, and we had 87; we need 800 driver days and we got 181. So, between John, our partners at NCDOT, and our third-party consultant, there was the decision that, while the model may run, it is not where it needs to be. The good news in all of that is that the state was able to get an extension of our SPR funds and we still have the contractor online to be able to complete the surveys. The bad news is, with our COVID-19 situation, we all know travel patterns are extremely different and they may not return to typical. But we had hoped to gear back up the driver survey this fall, but now we know it will not be possible. It will probably be early 2021 before we can actually initiate that effort as things get back to whatever normal we're going to get back to.
So, lessons learned from trying to collect the driver surveys, this is what the technical support says. Privacy concerns, safety concerns, reporting fatigue, and bottom-up recruiting. I assume that most participants on the webinar today have some experience with surveying and collecting freight data, so these are probably not very new to you. It is something that was anticipated, but I don't believe we anticipated in our area having the difficulties that we did. Privacy concerns all the way down to some companies saying I do not want you to know about a particular commodity we carry. And we said, that is fine, do not assign a survey to that particular driver. And, of course, we heard comments back that I'm not going to download an app and let you track me. This is the government sort of stepping in and saying we want to track your movements for a day, so there were some issues there. Safety concerns were mentioned by some of the higher-ups of the freight companies, having their drivers having to complete the survey, turn on the app. Again, there was a little bit of a lack of understanding that could not be communicated all the way down. Because, as I mentioned, you open the app in the morning, close at the end of the day, and answer questions. Reporting fatigue, we talked about that earlier with all the other data sources and data that does have to be reported by the industry anyway. And then bottom-up recording. We had a lot of great contacts and conversations with management of freight companies. And while there was some level of understanding, they were not the ones doing the driving. We do not know how many of those approached their drivers and their drivers just refused to, or whether they actually made that offer to them. But it is very difficult to get down to the actual drivers when you're trying to do this.
So, my list in terms of lessons learned is, as with many things that we do in both lanes in the transportation world, when you are asking someone to come to a meeting and complete a survey, if they do not see the priority that it has in their world it makes in very difficult for them to get engaged and be party of that. You saw the complexity of the freight model itself from John's presentation, but there is also a certain complexity about how transportation projects end up getting developed, end up getting on STIPs, end up getting constructed and put into utilization. Of course, we tried to hone in on the fact that this travel demand model, building the tour-based freight piece of it, was going to help us better understand how a particular highway project could be improved to address a freight need or concern. But those are very difficult and complex situations to try to communicate. I'll do it for you, if you were my friend; at one time I would say in this region we probably had a better relationship with the industry, but we simply do not have that these days. Freight has always sort of been a stepchild in terms of an industry within the region but has always been very important. But we simply didn't have the relationship with either a state-wide agency or a truckers' association or the individual companies. Because, quite frankly, working for the regional transportation authority, it is not in our wheelhouse to have to have those, it's not in our MPO's wheelhouse to have to have those types of relationships. That is one thing that we want to actually address. And then, as I mentioned before, the hardest part is getting direct communication with the drivers. Again, we can convince general managers perhaps of the trucking company, they can ask their drivers to participate, we can offer them $40, but at the end of the day we did not get the participation.
So, this is the timeline of the whole project and where we're at. You see we started Phase 3 in January 2019. We spent all of '19 and the first part of this year till we concluded that we did not get the survey samples we needed, and we were going to have to reboot for the 4th time to try to complete that. And now we have gotten stalled. Our state NCDOT Office of Freight and Logistics does plan to try to create some freight councils. This is an implementation step out of the statewide plan that was done several years ago. That may help us build relationships to be able to better communicate the value of the data that we need to collect. Then after that, although it is not agreed-upon, I have been talking about what Phase 4 will look like. And Phase 4 needs to be some kind of regional freight mobility plan that uses a lot of the output and data from the tour-based freight model. We have a great statewide plan that provides a lot of information in data and resource. But again, that is a couple of years old. We have data from Phase 1 which was collected probably back in 2016. So, that is a little bit old, so we do need a regional freight mobility plan moving forward.
To wrap up, I wanted to give a quick view of the larger vision of what we intend to do with the regional modeling program. Because, again, this is one small component of our overall modeling program. So, starting on the left hand side there we have our traditional travel demand model. John is the owner, custodian, and major guru in terms of the operation of that model. But within that is our freight model that is integrated into that. As we feel like freight is important in the region, we feel like the tour-based model is needed to give us a better understanding of the impacts on our highway and road system. We're also integrating scenario planning through the use of CommunityViz. This is to help us to better and more accurately report socio and economic data that feeds into that travel demand model. And then we use several transit planning and ridership projection tools on the transit side of what we do here at PART. We consider this a full package of modeling programs that we utilize to try to better provide data and information for our MPOs to do better planning. So, this is where it is all heading. We want to be freight focused in terms of the information we collect. It is a long road and we want to get down to being able to use the information out of the tour-based freight model to help project prioritization with our highway elements as well as other transportation elements. So, with that I am closed and now we will open up for questions.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you, Mark. We will start with the Q&A questions posted in the chat pod. Please feel free to keep on typing in questions. If we get through everything and have time will open the phone lines as well. Mark, since you finished up, I will start with questions for you since your presentation is fresh in everyone's mind. A few people asked if the survey questions could be shared.
Mark Kirstner
Yes. Jennifer, you tell me how best to be able to do that and we will be glad to share what the survey questions, both for the establishment survey as well as the truck driver survey.
Jennifer Symoun
If you want to send them to me, I will send them to anyone who registered when I send out the recording link.
Mark Kirstner
Excellent. We will do that.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright. And then a few people asked, can you give a ballpark figure for total cost to develop all the work for Phases 1, 2, &3?
Mark Kirstner
I anticipated that question and forgot to pull up my spreadsheet. Hang in with me for a second. The latest phase was the biggest in terms of cost. We were about $172,000 in Phase 1, $252,000 in Phase 2, and $424,000 in Phase 3. Each phase was a little more. As you can imagine, Phase 1 is just an existing condition data survey. The development of the freight model itself was $252,000. Then of course the data collection on Phase 3 is up there because of the nature of trying to get the survey data collected and then also feeding into the model and getting it calibrated and validated.
Jennifer Symoun
Another question. When will Phase 4 be completed given the fact that Phase 1 was five years ago?
Mark Kirstner
I think Phase 4 is something I have added in over the last year as helping our MPOs to see what might be next on the horizon. We had hoped that the Tour-based Freight Model might be done. Our MPOs are in the process of updating their Metropolitan Transportation Plans. And, ideally, if we had everything done, some of the model outputs could have been incorporated and used to develop their MTPs. So, with that not being a possibility, good news or bad news is that we have a couple of years where we can get to that point so that when they get to their MTP updates in 2025, we will have even richer and more robust information related to freight and we will have better integration of the model outputs into their plans.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright. Another question for you. How did you come to the determination of a necessary sample size of 200 drivers?
Mark Kirstner
John may be able to add into that. All three phases had third-party contractors working on the individual element. The short answer is, it was based upon a lot of the information and data from Phase 1: What types of commodities are being moved within your region? What are the truck types? Where are the facilities? So, the 200 was a statistical sound sample and was broken down into individual truck types and commodities carried. I do not know, John, would like to add anything to that?
John Kim
Thank you, Mark. Like Mark mentioned there is a lot of small functions and simulation processes inside the freight tour-based model. Considering the type of component elements and calculating the appropriate sample size. More details might be available in the document on our PART website.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright, thank you. Mark, another question for you. Is there any concern date given the data set is not complete or closed that changes in supply chains due to COVID-19 will make data collected in Phase 4 nonrepresentative?
Mark Kirstner
Wow, that is something that will need to be discussed. I appreciate the question. I am not sure it is something we have thought of in its entirety. We certainly realize that things are different and that the whole world of online ordering and freight movement is ever-changing. I think because the sample was so small that the good data that we will get will outweigh some of the other data. But if we were to restart an effort or a process, we will certainly not turn off the survey tool at 200 samples. We will again try to collect as much information and data as we can. I do appreciate the question. It is something we have to think about.
Jennifer Symoun
Another question. Is the North Carolina Motor Truck Association and/or any individual truck/freight carriers' members (voting or non-voting) of any of the MPO's policy/coordinating committees?
Mark Kirstner
None at an association or high-level. There are a couple of elected officials that are in the trucking industry part of our TACs. Those individuals, and we're talking 2 or 3, those were ones we were able to have some face-to-face communication with. Again, the initial response is, "Well, we already do a lot of reporting, I don't know why you need this. Why can't you use what data is available?" So, then even on a second or third run to try to explain how the data that is needed is so much different and so much more detailed, we were still not able to get participation.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you. Can you share the sampling plan used for the establishment survey with the stratified sampling targets?
Mark Kirstner
I am pretty sure that is in the scope of work, so I will add that to the list.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright, great. Thank you.
Mark Kirstner
If I may, Jennifer, I would like to take this opportunity to say that if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions or things you don't see on the presentation or that I verbalized in terms of ways to better collect this data, we would certainly appreciate that. I did not highlight that we were in touch with the State Truckers Association on several occasions and we just did not get a warm and fuzzy feeling from them. Even the first regional Freight Council meeting that the state held, there were only 2 people out of 100 and something invited, and those two folks came from the manufacturing side. Again, they understood it, but they said we do not have drivers, we have people from other companies coming to our docks. Any help that the group could provide could us be greatly appreciated.
Jennifer Symoun
Another question for you. What about having school bus drivers share their experience of tracking systems that are routinely used by bus companies? I imagine their perspective and level of comfort would help break the ice with truck drivers.
Mark Kirstner
Another good suggestion. Their particular movements are not part of the tour-based freight model. The other thing kind of related to that, I have been in the dispatch and call center for one or more of our larger carriers within the region, but not even having been in there we know that FedEx, Amazon Prime, Old Dominion, they know exactly where their trucks are every minute of the day, they know exactly what they are carrying. We also pushed or asked a little bit, "Could you just share your raw data? Here are the data fields that we need. We are not looking to get any secrets." We were just looking for 200 drivers doing 3 to 4 driver days. So, it wasn't like it was a week's worth of activities. So, I did not mention that earlier, but we also have that as an opportunity. And that's where I feel that if we had a better relationship with the industry, we could have gotten the data in 2 weeks. But, we just don't.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright. Let's go up to some questions for our John now. How does the Commercial Vehicle Touring Model address e-commerce deliveries?
Jennifer Symoun
Alright. Let's go up to some questions for our John now. How does the Commercial Vehicle Touring Model address e-commerce deliveries?
John Kim
Our Commercial Vehicle Model does not handle e-commerce.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright. Another question for you. How many simulation runs are done per each of the 15 or so models? How is simulation error treated in each of the 15 or so models in the entire process? How is error propagation from one model to another treated in the model-chain process sequence?
John Kim
This model was developed by a consulting firm, but I did not look into how they work. But as far as I understand, the simulation process is only getting involved in the face of modern development. As you know this is part of the static four-step model. I believe the simulation process is going to take place and with the type of calibrations. And at the end of the calibrations the simulation models the process is kind of fixed. The database is going to be built and feed into the four-step model. The only thing that is different is that the data varies and has impact on the freight tour-based model.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you. Another question for you. Does your freight model feature path retention and truck trajectories to assist travel time, travel costs, energy use, and emissions?
John Kim
This is not a microscopic model of the freight travel. So, no. The general information of freight trip tables like you get from the four-step model, that's the only information you can get. So, we see, that is a good question, but I am doubting it is possible to get that kind of detailed individual information about freight travel.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright, let's see. Fred, there is one question for you. Interesting that regional transit was a big stakeholder. Can you talk about how that came to be?
Fredrick Haith
I believe that question would be more appropriately directed towards Mark.
Mark Kirstner
Yes. The Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation was created by the state legislator in the late 1990s. It was created originally as a planning organization. As Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Highpoint, and the Piedmont Triad area here in North Carolina began to grow together, there was a recognition that we need to look at our transportation planning collectively across four MPO areas, thus PART was created. We led a number of congestion mitigation studies and even completed a passenger rail study between Greensboro and Winston-Salem. Those were some of the early planning efforts. But, as part of our local funding, which is based upon vehicle rental tax off of our airport that resides in Guilford County primarily (the two major counties being Guilford and Forsyth), that funding was approved for one year. At the end of that year it was to be renewed, but when we went up for renewal, they said, "So what have you done for us lately?" So, our executive director at that time said we will start regional commuter transit between Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point. And thus, PART Express was born. And PART Express, of course, I am on the planning side of things, has overtaken the organization. But it is the most visible piece. So, while we do provide public transportation across an 8 county area, we also are the custodians for the travel demand model, because that was one of the initial efforts as to why the MPOs agreed to create this regional authority so the resources could be shared to do the travel demand model. Again, probably about half of my work is on the modeling side and the other half is assisting out transit operations.
Jennifer Symoun
Alright, thank you. Mark, I think this is for you. Maybe you mentioned it, but if you have a permitting department contact for your oversized, overweight trucks or possibly even a weight station contact, they may be able to provide a robust list of truck driver contacts.
Mark Kirstner
Another good thought, especially on the independent drivers. My learning curve on freight is always on the upswing, and one of the things I did not realize is the number of independent drivers. So, if you are familiar with an Old Dominion which is a large national carrier, they are based here in the triad. So, it's easy to identify them and approach them. But clearly a good third or maybe a little more than a third of our drivers are independent; they are not working for a particular company, but are working through a broker to broker their services. So, that may be another possibility, something that the state DOT should have. Something that perhaps would be another avenue to reach out. I appreciate the suggestion.
Jennifer Symoun
We are about out of time. There may be a few more people typing. Let's see what comes in before we close out. There was a comment to all presenters that state motor truck associations primarily have small carrier or independent driver members. And other question about sharing the survey questions. Mark will send me the survey questions and I will send them out along with a recording of the webinar.
Thank you all for attending today's seminar. I will send out a link to the recording of today's webinar within the next day. The June Talking Freight seminar is not yet available for registration but once it is I will send notice through the Freight Planning LISTSERV. The Freight Planning LISTSERV is the primary means of sharing information about upcoming seminars. I also encourage you to join the LISTSERV if you have not already done so.
