Transportation research has primarily focused on urban passenger transportation issues (e.g. commuting time, pollution, etc.) and solutions to these problems. It is only relatively recently that the contribution of freight transportation to transportation problems more generally has begun to be recognized. That freight transportation is increasing dramatically and is expected to increase into the foreseeable future has become a cause of concern in terms of its effect on entire transportation systems.

This is not to say that freight traffic has been ignored by transportation and statistical authorities. In fact, a great deal of effort in many jurisdictions has been focused on trying to develop better information about freight transportation in Canada. These data collection efforts fall into two main categories. The first category includes surveys that collect information on freight operating fleets. The best example of this is the Canadian Vehicle Survey that collects information relating to the characteristics of the operating fleet as well as its use.

The second category of data collection considers what freight is moving and where. This is particularly true at the federal and provincial levels. The aggregated results from the freight surveys along with aggregated information from the Railway Carloading Survey provide information on land-based freight transportation used in Transport Canada’s annual report Transportation in Canada. Provincial governments have also invested in collecting freight data through their participation in National Roadside Surveys.

While both of these categories of freight information are necessary to transportation planning, these initiatives focus on the end result of freight transportation – namely what is being moved where and by what form of transportation. Lacking from these initiatives are attempts to understand the behavioural underpinnings of these transportation outcomes.

Using passenger transportation as an analogy, this would amount to undertaking data collection that included only information on passenger flows – the number of people driving or taking public transit, etc. – without trying to understand the factors that contribute to passenger transportation demand. This, however, would be unheard of in passenger transportation analysis, since understanding the behavioural underpinnings of passenger demand has been fundamental to passenger transportation research since its beginnings.

The goal of this project is to link the behavioural underpinnings of freight transportation decision makers (shippers and carriers) and freight transportation flows and to disseminate this information to regional, provincial and federal transportation planners. Understanding these underpinnings is crucial to understanding future freight transportation flows, how they will integrate with passenger flows, and what this implies for transportation infrastructure.