Article ID: | iaor20101791 |
Volume: | 44 |
Issue: | 3 |
Start Page Number: | 119 |
End Page Number: | 135 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2010 |
Journal: | Transportation Research Part A |
Authors: | Pohl Letitia M, Meller Russell D, Pazour Jennifer A |
High-speed rail is often touted as a means to reduce congestion on the United States' highways by removing passenger car traffic. But highway congestion can also be reduced by reducing the amount of freight traffic. So, given the advances in high-speed rail, the potential exists for developing a national high-speed network for freight distribution. To design such a network considering highway traffic and transit times, we present an uncapacitated network design model with a post-processing step for the capacity constraint. To illustrate how our modeling approach could be used by policy makers to evaluate the impacts of a high-speed rail network, we apply our models with preliminary data on high-speed rail operating parameters for freight applications and from current data on shipments from a major truckload carrier and the US Census Bureau.