Measuring the Impacts of Freight Transportation Improvements on the Economy and Competitiveness

This reference document serves as the final report for Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) project to examine economic competitiveness and cost in relation to freight movement. To inform this document, a literature review and white paper that considered the concept of competitiveness in relation to the concept of economic productivity was developed. The white paper identified different freight performance measures and economic factors and discussed their linkage. It also reviewed a broad range of models that have been used to analyze the benefits and economic impacts of transportation improvements. A technical memo provided information sorting economic tools by type and an evaluation of those models that are most relevant to measuring the productivity impacts of freight improvements. In addition, a reference document was developed for practitioners discussing the different classes of benefits, economic impacts, and different models and tools for analyzing them. This document pulls together the research from all the tasks. While there is considerable emphasis in this document on the important economic impacts of freight transportation improvements on competitiveness and economic productivity, other types of economic impacts are also discussed. This document thus reviews three different types of analyses: 1) benefit-cost analysis (BCA), 2) economic impact assessments, and 3) analyses focused on estimating the impact of transportation on industry productivity and competitiveness.