Empirical Truck Activity Times at International Crossings from Position, Navigation and Timing Data and Geospatial Information Systems
- Discipline
- City and Regional Planning
- Semester
- Autumn 2018
- Course
- Professional Development II
- Description
- When crossing international borders, trucks engage in multiple activities that increase trip times and trip-time variability, e.g., approaching on congested roadways, paying tolls, undergoing customs inspections, and waiting in queues. Documenting the times incurred in these multiple activities is difficult because the activities are spatially dispersed, temporally variant, and affected by institutional and operational complexities resulting from the multiple organizations operating infrastructure in two countries. Our “geo-fence” approach exploits existing systems used by truck fleets and needs no roadside equipment. “Geo-fences” are virtual polygons coded in a truck’s on-board data unit. Using the GPS location signals, the controller determine whether it is inside or outside the geo-fenced polygon. A record is automatically generated and communicated when the truck crosses into or out of the polygon. A major North American freight hauler whose trucks regularly traverse the Canadian-U.S. border partnered with us in this study. Previously, geo-fences were used for company purposes. We specified and uploaded geo-fences at strategic locations to delineate activities of interest at the Ambassador Bridge and Blue Water Bridge crossings. Activity times for truck trips are determined by matching crossing records for the appropriate fence locations and determining the time between the crossings. The trucks serve as activity time probes, and the activity times of multiple trucks can be aggregated to form activity time distributions.