Forecasting Metropolitan Commercial and Freight Travel

Review of the issues faced and approaches being taken to model freight movements at a cross section of major MPOs in regions with significant freight activity.

pp. 43-66 Steps 4 & 6

Deals with the challenges with and advantages of modelling freight systems through Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). Gives an idea of what should be included in Step 6's "comprehensive, coordinated, growth business plan," as well as some of the problems that may crop up while developing such a plan (which can hopefully be avoided).

In chapter 5. "Survey of Metropolitian Planning Organization Practices", the MPO's of several large US cities are polled on what their concerns in regards to freight truck traffic.  As in Step 4 in the Freight System Action Plan, the same metrics (Commerce, Land Use, Environmental and Community) are assessed to determine traffic volume and its potential impact to the neighboring communities. The documents contains equations and explains the theory that MPO's use when planning development.