The TREDIS FREIGHT module provides State DOTs, MPOs and transportation organizations with unsurpassed analysis capabilities that support freight planning, strategy development, project prioritization, economic impact assessment, and benefit-cost evaluation as well as meeting a number of other Federal requirements.

These capabilities are enabled by a clearly laid-out framework that (a) brings together available transportation, economic and trade data, and (b) integrates industry, commodity and modal perspectives.  TREDIS provides these capabilities in a fully integrated package, or it can be adapted to use (or work with) an agency’s own transportation data, economic data, and models (including Global Insight, Moody’s, REMI, IMPLAN) and freight/trade databases (including Transearch^® and vFreight^TM).  It can be used in different ways for corridor, project or area-level studies. 

TREDIS Fueled by Transearch^® - Corridor Analysis

Select a highway or rail corridor, and then:

• Profile freight flows using the corridor.*
• Assess its national and regional significance.
• Identify area industries and supply chain components that depend on the selected corridor.
• Calculate how forecasted economic changes will change future freight activity levels.
• Use this information to assess implications for strategies, investment programs, or system budgets and plans.

Define a highway, rail, air or marine project, and then:

• Profile the affected freight flows and associated economic activities dependent on the project.*
• Assess the economic importance of the project’s impact on that freight movement.
• Identify industries and supply chain components that will benefit from the project.
• Calculate impacts on facility use, user benefit-cost and wider economic impacts.
• Use this information to assess implications for project priorities and selection.

Select a broad State, Metro or County-based Region, and then:

• Profile the area’s pattern of freight flows.*
• Assess the supply chain roles of those freight flows.
• Identify the area’s economic dependencies on those supply chain roles.
• Calculate how emerging economic trends will change future freight flows.
• Use this information to assess implications for future freight or economic development strategies.

*Profiles cover freight volume (tonnage, number of vehicles), economic value, mode, origin-destination, commodity mix and/or affected industries.

vFreight^tm - Visualizing County-Level Freight Flows

vFreight is an information dataset developed by EDR Group that can be used with TREDIS.

 Key Features:

• Provides easy, intuitive, and visually supported access to detailed commodity flow data.
• Shows county-to-county flows by 2 or 3 digit SCTG level.
• Provides domestic mode for each commodity type.
• Provides international mode for each traded commodity.
• Shows location of county for 219 port of entry (imports) and port of exit (exports) for all traded commodities.
• Provides county-level trade (exports/imports) for 18 countries.
• “Cloud-based” structure provides “instant” access anywhere internet is available.

Applications:

• Demonstrates national and international linkages for domestic freight movements.
• Identifies key ports of entry/exit for traded commodities.
• Supports freight analysis at levels of geographic detail consistent with federal, statewide, and regional planning.
• Provides effective ways of graphically sharing trade and commodity flow data with policymakers and the public.
• Facilitates economic development strategies relating to trade partners, import substitution and export growth.
  

For vFreight information and login, Click here. Download vFreight datasheet.

Custom Add-ons:
Alternative Scenario and Trade Corridor Access

TREDIS allows for a growing number of add-on modules that address commodity flow and freight economics, which are developed on a custom basis for clients. They include:

 TREDPLAN Scenario Insights:

• Derive planning insights independent of economic impact analysis using detailed TREDIS economic-demographic-commodity forecasting data.
• Evaluate the implication of alternative global economic scenarios, covering energy costs, transportation costs, exchange rates, modal technologies, etc.
• Examine implications for growth shifts in industries, spatial shifts in trade corridor patterns, operational efficiency, and supply chain productivity.
• Assess implications for the future competitive positioning of industries and locations.

Commercial Corridor Productivity Analysis:

• Expands the TREDIS productivity analysis (from market scale and intermodal connectivity) to also track how changes in performance of individual commerce corridors shift supply chain productivity.
• Builds on detailed supply chain back-tracing to derive productivity changes by industry and location.
• Builds on detailed origin-destination and inter-industry commodity trade movements, as well as operational efficiency metrics in the TREDIS database.
• Uses customized market access, performance, and productivity elasticity factors extracted from detailed statistical analysis that is customized for each study.
• Used with TREDIS to identify which industries will become competitive as a result of corridor improvements.
  

 For more information, contact TREDIS Software at 617-303-0424.