DOT UNVEILS COMPUTER TOOL TO IDENTIFY FREIGHT BOTTLENECKS

DOT UNVEILS COMPUTER TOOL TO IDENTIFY FREIGHT BOTTLENECKS    The U.S. Department of Transportation has unveiled a personal computer tool to help public sector freight planners identify and assess current and likely major freight bottlenecks in the five sectors of the nation’s transportation system.
   Called the “Intermodal Bottleneck Evaluation Tool,” the new device is a major first product in the U.S. government's effort to give policy professionals the means to assess demands of commerce on the national transportation systems, said Ashish Sen, director of DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
   The tool will help planners address bottlenecks on highway-seaport access; seaport congestion; highway-airport access; airport congestion; and, highway-rail terminal access, DOT said.
   The tool is a first step in an effort to make data-based decision mechanisms publicly available in the near future, Sen said.
   The evaluation tool allows users to look at both modal and intermodal networks, as well as modal trends and use patters like origin and destination points. For each bottleneck area, the tool is able to show domestic, import and export flows, as well as through traffic by states of origin and destination, DOT said.
   The new program was created by the Bureau of Trade Statistics, along with the Office of Intermodalism, the Office of Freight Management and Operations, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.