Momentum Freight's Weblog

The San Antonio IH-10 Transportation Corridor is a difficult route for transport trucking firms trying to manage the trucking logistics of there fleet as they attempt to get the goods and products Americans need to life to their destination promptly and on time.
Transport trucking in this busy transportation corridor is plagued with transport problems that make this task almost impossible at present to accomplish in the way transport firms need. The problems with traffic congestion in this corridor are like many American transportation corridors, as users are forced to deal with traffic congestion on a daily basis that makes traveling down this corridor a pain.
Users of this transportation corridor must deal with traffic from the downtown business district of San Antonio, residential and commercial traffic, along with the traffic from a number of large education institutions in the area and a busy medical center located in the northwest corner of San Antonio. In addition, users must deal with the traffic from the Six Flags Fiesta Texas attraction, along with a number of retail shops and commercial development that has recently come into the area.
For these reasons, along with others, the San Antonio IH-10 Transportation Corridor was a perfect candidate for the United States Department of Transportations to name this transportation corridor as one of its Pioneer Sites for its Integrated Corridor Management Initiative.
The implementation of the San Antonio IH-10 ICM Initiative is therefore a project that is needed to improve the ability of Americans living and working in the area to move around and conduct business in an efficient and timely manner.

Every year for eighteen years now the Reason Foundation, a non-profit group, has performed a detailed study of the United States individual state-controlled highway systems. This information is important for any trucking service.

This year’s study (covering data gathered for the year 2007) rated state highways based on eleven categories that, in addition to traffic congestion and bridge conditions, included pavement conditions, maintenance expenditures, rural interstate conditions, and fatalities on those highways. Overall conditions of these highway systems generally improved in 2007 with one of the most important categories—fatalities—showing a 4.6 percent decrease in highway deaths.
However, two key indicators showed declines overall. The number of bridges rated deficient or structurally obsolete increased and urban interstates with poor pavement also increased.

In 2007, for the ninth year in a row, the study gave North Dakota the title of the best performing highway system with New Mexico coming in second and Kansas coming in third. Alaska was determined to have the worst performing highway system with Rhode Island following close behind.

According to the study, more than half of our state-owned highways experience congestion—not a surprise considering the United States’ growing population. The study also assesses bridges and has found that Rhode Island and Massachusetts bridges are in the worst condition.

Spending on state highways increased by 10 percent with a total of $109 billion spent, and with administrative costs taking an ever greater portion of expenditures.

For complete information, view the report at the Reason Foundation website at http://reason.org/files/highway/18th_annua…hway_report.pdf.

To learn more about the Reason Foundation, go to http://reason.org .

Trucking across the English Channel has gotten back to normal. The Operation Stack that Dover-area officials used to keeps trucks on one side of the road on the M20 expressway has been ended, as trucks are now moving onto either ferries or the Chunnel without obstruction. Freight trains through the tunnel are back to normal, although the condensation-related glitches that stopped passenger rail traffic have yet to be fixed.

Authorities seem to have weathered the storm rather well. They might have had some practice back in February when a similar storm hit the area. However, a combination of snow and ice is still affecting the area. Scotland’s airports are slowed down due to bad weather and Manchester was badly hit, closing its airport for parts of the weekend.

International transportation, especially air transport, took a double-whammy from the storm that did in the English Channel area and the storm that hit the US northeast over the weekend. It looks like most of the freight issues will iron themselves out by Christmas, which can’t be said of the passenger issues in that area.

US airports are used to handling a lot of snow, even if it shuts them down for a time while the snow is coming down, but European countries outside of traditionally snowy areas like Scandinavia (it was a Swedish inventor that put automatic tire chains into usable form) often don’t know how to handle snowy weather, since areas like southern England only get multi-inch snowstorms once or twice a decade rather than multiple times a winter.

http://www.handyshippingguide.com/shipping…ues-vanish_1069
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8424338.stm

Transport trucking firms have been watching carefully as a U.S. bill is currently being discussed that would set up pilot projects designed to implement long combination vehicle (LCVs) in two northeast border states. Called the FY2010 Transportation Appropriations bill, the legislation has recently passed through the House of Representatives, and would mean the start a one-year pilot program to see if heavier tractor-trailers on the busy interstate highways of Maine and Vermont are a good idea and something that will work on these routes to help transport firms deliver larger amounts of goods and materials more efficiently.

This bill means that 108,000 to 120,000 pound six-axle trucks could transport goods on the busy interstate highways and bridges of Vermont and 100,000 pound six-axle trucks on the transportation routes of Maine’s interstate routes. The present limit for transport trucks on Vermont’s highways is 80,000 pounds and specific transport trucks with particular loads can carry up to 99,000 pounds down Vermont’s highways.

There has been some negative reactions to the new bill by groups of individuals who have been fighting the changes to weight measures on these particular routes. Stating that the heavy transports will mean the routes will wear down quicker and that traveling on these routes would become less safe for all users, if the changes go forward, in a recently released press release. The Truck Safety Coalition, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways Foundation and Parents Against Tired Truckers warned users of these routes of the possible effects of the changes on the driving conditions on the routes where these new weight measures will go into effect.