Engineering Commons^™

The Relationship Between Vmt And Economic Activity, B. Starr Mcmullen, Nathan Eckstein

TREC Final Reports

Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. have exhibited an upward trend over time similar to that observed for gross domestic product (GDP) and personal income (PI). While conventional wisdom suggests that economic growth leads to more driving and thus higher VMT, it is theoretically possible that the causation could also be the other way around. If causation is from VMT to GDP, then legislation such as the Federal Surface Transportation Policy and Planning Act of 2009’s directive to annually reduce national per capita VMT could potentially have an adverse impact on overall economic activity.

This study uses times series …

Freight Distribution Problems In Congested Urban Areas: Fast And Effective Solution Procedures To Time-Dependent Vehicle Routing Problems, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Congestion is a common phenomenon in all medium to large cities of the world. Reliability of freight movement in urban areas is an important issue to manufacturing or service companies whose operation is based in just-in-time approaches. These companies tend to provide high value or time sensitive products/services. As congestion increases, carriers face increasing challenges to satisfy their time sensitive customers in an economical way. Route designs or schedules which require long computation times or ignore travel time variations will result in inefficient and suboptimal solutions. Poorly designed routes that lead freight vehicles into congested arteries and streets not only …