ESTIMATING FREIGHT FLOWS FOR METROPOLITAN AREA HIGHWAY NETWORKS USING SECONDARY DATA SOURCES For Presentation National Urban Freight Conference

We present ongoing work on developing an automated integration system for freight flow analysis and planning. To overcome the limitations of current estimation methods for commodity flows, we use reliable secondary sources, including small-area employment data, and derive estimates in a plausible way by means of a computational workflow. When available, we extract the data automatically from online sources, so that the system maintains the estimations continuously updated. In this paper we provide an overview of our modeling approach and the major data sources used. We apply the model using data from the Los Angeles region, and compare our assignment results with available screenline counts. The results are encouraging. Our approach will eventually allow planners and policymakers to make more informed decisions by utilizing the most recent data from many sources and enhancing the ability to explore different scenarios.