From Freight Flow and Cost Patterns to Greater Profitability and Better Service for a Motor Carrier

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 4-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry H. Barker ◽  
Ed M. Sharon ◽  
Dilip K. Sen
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Husnain Saeed ◽  
Shahid Ikramullah ◽  
Mushtaq Khan ◽  
Fahd Amjad ◽  
Liaqat Ali ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Brenda M. Lantz

The roadside Inspection Selection System (ISS) was developed in response to a 1995 congressional mandate that called for the use of prior carrier safety data to guide the selection of commercial vehicles and drivers for roadside inspections. The program was developed in part by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation. As ISS has developed, FMCSA’s Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) program has also been evolving. One objective of PRISM is to identify relatively unsafe carriers by assigning Safety Status Measurement System (SafeStat) scores and also encouraging those drivers to improve their safety performance or risk losing registration privileges. SafeStat was designed to prioritize carriers for monitoring and compliance reviews, but ISS was designed to prioritize carriers for roadside inspection. Both algorithms, however, use similar data to define a relatively unsafe carrier. It would be advantageous therefore to have a single uniform rating system for all FMCSA programs. This research briefly describes the PRISM and SafeStar algorithms; discusses the integration of the SafeStat algorithm into ISS; and presents conclusions on the initial testing of the resulting system, ISS-2. An analysis of over 213,000 roadside inspections reveals that ISS-2 is as effective as the original ISS in meeting the goals for which it was designed. It successfully identifies and prioritizes for roadside inspection the vehicles and drivers of carriers with poor prior safety performance, as well as those with few or no previous inspections. In addition, safety inspectors who have tested the system say they are pleased with the new algorithm and its added features.


Author(s):  
B. Starr McMullen

This study examines the relationship between motor carrier productivity, marketing strategy, and use of information technology for a sample of U.S. general freight commodity carriers. We use a unique data set containing information on firm marketing strategy and information technology use collected in a survey of Class I and II motor carrier firms (U.S. Department of Transportation, 1999). The measure of productivity used here is the non-parametric Malmquist Index as explained in Grosskopf (1993) and previously applied to general freight motor carriers by McMullen and Okuyama (2000). The Malmquist Index is decomposed into two components: economic efficiency change (EC) and technical efficiency change (TC). A tobit model regression model is used to examine the relationship between firm productivity, marketing strategy, and use of information technology. Information technologies included in the tobit analysis are electronic data interchange (EDI) and satellite communications (SATCOM). We also include firm size, use of owner-operators, and percent unionization as explanatory variables in the tobit regression. Results indicate that use of EDI has a positive and significant impact on economic efficiency (EC). Firms that try to market their product by providing service at the "lowest freight rate" are found to exhibit greater technical efficiency (TC), suggesting that productivity and cost measures that ignore marketing strategy may be biased. Finally, economic efficiency (EC) is found to be significantly greater for firms that are more heavily unionized.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Misty Moody ◽  
S Scott Nadler ◽  
Doug Voss

Motor carrier safety is a topic of great importance for both industry and makers of public policy. Regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), regularly publish data detailing the circumstances surrounding roadway accidents. FMCSA’s Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts (LTBCF) data demonstrate an increase in accidents during daylight hours and on weekdays. Roadway risks are ever-present but differ by time of day and day of the week. These differences may potentially engender crashes of different severities at different times. This study analyzes FMCSA LTBCF data to determine when crashes of different severities are more likely to occur. Findings indicate that crashes resulting in property damage are more likely to occur during the day and on weekdays. However, fatal and injury crashes are significantly more likely during nights and weekends. Recommendations to improve safety outcomes are provided along with suggestions for future research.


1998 ◽  
Vol 1625 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venkatesh Krishnan ◽  
Kathleen L. Hancock

Goods movement is an important aspect of the transportation system. Freight flow, complemented with the much-researched passenger movement, provides a way for understanding the complete vehicle flow scenario on the highways. Commodity movement prediction has not received much attention because of the lack of sufficient and easily accessible data sources. Most data sources give aggregated commodity movements and, because of the heterogeneity of freight, accurate predictions of truck flows have not been possible. A methodology for calculating the truck flows on the various highways in Massachusetts from interstate commodity flow data is presented. Freight tons originating and ending in Massachusetts have been converted to truck numbers by using a quantitative procedure and distributed to different areas in the state by using employment as an economic indicator variable. The truck flow is assigned to the important highways and validated against existing survey counts. On comparison, a large percentage of the roads show the estimated truck counts are within a tolerable error margin. The research also shows that statewide analyses need to be refined near urban areas because of a variety of complexities involved.


1958 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard W. Nicholson

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