Research

Private sector paper award

Srinivas Peeta, and Anne Goodchild (click image to enlarge)

The AT045 committee introduced a Private Sector Award at the 2015 Annual Meeting. The award is given to researchers whose work supports the private sector and helps bridge the gap between theory and practice. In 2015, the award was given to the paper “Rail-Truck Multimodal Freight Collaboration: A Statistical Analysis of Freight Shipper Perspectives” by Yuntao Guo, Srinivas Peeta, and Fred Mannering. The paper was presented at the committee meeting and followed by comments from Darrell Wilson of Norfolk Southern. Mr. Wilson commented that he would take the modeling results and survey methodology back to his team at Norfolk Southern (whom he referred to as his code breakers). He mentioned several large, well-known retailers as his greenest customers.

Yuntao Guo, Anne Goodchild, and Richard B. Easley (click image to enlarge)

Research at the Intemodal Freight Transport Committee

TRB's mission is to promote innovation and progress in transportation through research. The Intermodal Freight Transport Committee supports this goal by identifying freight research needs and coordinating the dissemination of intermodal freight research among committee members, TRB, and outside groups. The committee prepares research problem statements and ideas, reviews papers submitted for TRB annual meetings, and identifies sessions and speakers for TRB and other meetings.

One vehicle by which the Intermodal Fraight Transport Committee disseminates research ideas is The National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP). The NCFRP was authorized with the passage of SAFETEA-LU in 2005. The NCFRP is sponsored by the US Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and managed by the National Academies, acting through its Transportation Research Board (TRB), with program governance provided by an Oversight Committee including a representative cross section of freight stakeholders. This program was born out of the efforts of TRB committees and task forces to bring freight into the spotlight. Many of the problem statements originating in the Intermodal Freight Transport committee are now topics for NCFRP contracts. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), a sister program to the NCFRP, also funds transportation related projects following a similar funding structure. For more information on the NCHRP's funding strategies please view the video or power point slides from a CRC Funding Program Webinar that was hosted by the NCHRP on 25 July 2013.

Another mechanism for the dissemination of freight related research ideas is the TRB Research Needs Statements database. Also through TRB, the Intermodal Freight Transport Committee sponsors an annual Call For Papers (CFP) to be submitted to and presented at the Annual Meeting. The annual meeting CFP may be viewed at: http://pressamp.trb.org/CallForPapers/default.asp?event=678 or as a pdf here.