Spatial Decision Support Systems for Study Critical Freight Corridors

Abstract

Efficient freight mobility plays a major role in the economy, and its performance is closely related to the quality of the transportation system. Requirements for funding transportation infrastructure projects often do not specify the analytical tools planners should use to request funding. Critical Urban and Rural Freight Corridors are sections of the National Highway Freight Network providing critical connectivity of goods and must have improved system performance. This paper offers a method for identifying these corridors using a multi-criteria spatial decision support system (MC-SDSS). The developed framework attributes a score to highway corridors (links) based on policy eligibility and prioritization. We apply the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to structure the problem and consider different stakeholder preferences and available data. The product of this study is a tool for decision-makers to optimize the selection of critical freight corridors and analyze alternatives. Using the State of Florida as a case study, this study applied different scenarios to demonstrate the applicability of the method. Results show that the GIS-based MCDM was efficient in enabling comparison and automatization of the problem, which contains a large set of feasible corridors, multiple conflicting criteria, and several stakeholders involved. In contrast with the current State’s critical freight corridor designation process, the proposed approach is based on an automated method, making the corridor selection process faster and more comprehensive.