C James Kruse

North American Marine Highways

This report presents an evaluation of the potential for moving intermodal containers on chassis, non-containerized trailers, or rail cars on marine highways in North America. The report is especially valuable for its assessment of the conditions for feasibility; its analysis of the economic, technical, regulatory, and logistical barriers inhibiting greater use of the marine highway system; and proposed solutions for barrier elimination. This report will enable public and private stakeholders to better understand the underlying reasons for the current underutilization of the marine highway system. This marine highway system (often referred to as short sea shipping) includes navigable rivers, lakes, canals, seaways, and coastal waterways. Currently, less than 4% of the Nations domestic freight moves by water.

Integrating MTS Commerce Data with Multimodal Freight Transportation Performance Measures to Support MTS Maintenance Investment Decision Making

This report investigates the feasibility of evaluating potential navigation operation and maintenance projects on the Marine Transportation System (MTS) not only as they relate to waterborne commerce, but also in light of the landside freight connections as well. A network optimization model is described that maximizes the multimodal system capacity by choosing the navigation maintenance projects that will either fully accommodate expected demand or provide the greatest potential throughput within overall budget constraints, taking into account the origins and destinations of the commodities that move through a regional multimodal network. Five ports are selected for analysis: Duluth, Minnesota; Hampton Roads, Virginia; Huntington, West Virginia; Plaquemines, Louisiana; and Portland, Oregon.