Author: Mid-America Freight Coalition

 Will FLOW provide Better Supply Chain Data?

News

The Biden-⁠Harris Administration announced a new initiative to improve supply chain data flow that could provide information to support freight corridor and multimodal planning. FLOW, the Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW) is intended to speed up delivery times and reduce consumer cost through greater coordination and information sharing across key logistics and industry players.

Ten tractor trailers parked in a row. View is from rear.

MAASTO’s Freight Focus Supports Faster Disaster Relief

MAASTO MAFC

A first in the nation, MAASTO states have collaborated to increase truck weights across the region for emergency divisible loads during declared disasters. See the AASHTO Journal article (at this link) for details on the regional agreement. The MAFC project report can be found under MAFC Research (here).

Truck Parking

News

What do current supply chain challenges mean for truck parking shortages? While the world of logistics is seeing new pressures exacerbated by an “…online shopping boom, lower inventories and federal mandates on driver rest…”, truck parking and related driver safety issues persist. A recent article from Bloomberg highlights continued truck parking issues in light of continued supply […]

Photo from: https://www.americanpatriotholdings.com/ is a rendering of shipping containers on a container barge on the Mississippi River with surrounding landscape of trees, water, and blue sky dotted with small puffy white clouds.

A Marine Freight Renaissance?

Maritime News

Many major cities around the world were founded on marine transportation corridors. St louis lays claim to this history and is working towards revolutionizing container freight movement in the region. Read about the promising and long-awaited Container on Barge (COB) development for the Mississippi River in the KSDK.com article “New St. Louis port bringing container ships […]

First page of Anne Goodchild's presentation with image of person in an urban parking lot with packages behind open delivery van with child looking out of the open delivery van door.

Urban Freight: Transitions and Opportunities, Dr. Anne Goodchild’s Presentation Available

Annual Meeting Events MAFC

The 2021 MAFC annual virtual meeting examines transitions and opportunities in urban freight movement, freight resiliency, freight technologies, and automation. Session one with Dr. Anne Goodchild, Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Director, Supply Chain Transportation & Logistics Center at the University of Washington was held November 4th, and is available under the […]

Flyer advertisement for Dr. Anne Goodchild speaker event.

Urban Freight: Transitions and Opportunities. Nov. 4th

Annual Meeting Events

Please join the MAASTO freight professionals at the MAFC annual meeting session featuring Dr. Anne Goodchild of the University of Washington, Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center. Dr. Goodchild will address – Urban Freight: Transitions and Opportunities Thursday, November 4th at 2:00 pm CDT.

Electric Freight

News

See the article below on experiences with electric trucks and follow the metrics on electric trucks operating today. More than a dozen electric trucks will be measured over three weeks along their usual delivery routes to tally the amount of carbon they emit. This is part of a Run on Less program aimed at measuring […]

Map image of Hawaii highlighting highway system.

Highway System Resiliency, HDOT Approach Worth Checking Out

Highway News

Hawaii’s Department of Transportation (HDOT) progressive plan for a more resilient highway system has a lot to offer those considering an approach to climatic adaptation and mitigating natural hazard disasters. Considering the MAASTO region’s frequent work to mitigate natural hazard disasters, taking a look at Hawaii’s approach provides insights to asset and hazard identification, and […]

Oversize/Overweight Vehicle Accommodation in Work Zones

News

The University of Wisconsin at Madison under the FHWA Work Zone Safety Grant Program developed the Oversize/Overweight Vehicle Accommodation in Work Zones document as part of their Work Zone Design Series training. It provides information on how to consider accommodating and mitigating oversize and overweight vehicles in work zones. The Work Zone Designer Series: Oversize/Overweight […]