The dynamic capacity of freight and passenger transportation systems is becoming stretched beyond its static infrastructure and the traditional operations of the systems. Funding for public infrastructure, critical to all modes as they increasingly operate with other modes, has been limited at the federal level. This has impacted both deteriorating existing infrastructure and new infrastructure needed for volume increases and for changes in future transportation systems. New infrastructure will need years to be operational and able to provide some relief to the congestion and slowing of transportation systems.
In 2015, there will be a growing interest and emphasis on management of transportation systems to provide solutions to a limited and deteriorating transportation static infrastructure. Economists will be delighted to see selective pricing used as a management tool to bring changes in operations such as we have seen for terminal access and dwell time in terminals, increasing dynamic capacity.
Terminals will be the management success story of the future as they become the key to improving the dynamic capacity of transportation systems managing the coordination, collaboration and clearing house function for line-haul moves both within a mode and between modes.
New managerial players, resources and processes will come into being to manage and coordinate moves into, out of, and within terminals in a holistic transportation systems approach. This holistic management will require collaboration and cooperation between modes and within modes so that flows through a terminal complement and enhance a dynamic transportation capacity.
The success of this coordinated management approach will improve and enhance the efficiency, profitability and benefits of dynamic transportation systems for shippers and passengers using the systems, as well as for carriers and governments that provide the capital for the infrastructure and equipment.
William J. DeWitt, III, Executive Director, University of Denver Intermodal Transportation Institute