A.M. Executive Briefing - Aug. 17
This Morning's Headlines:
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Retailers Form Theft Squad
U.S. retailers Sears, Kmart, Dayton Hudson, Tommy Hilfiger, The Limited and others have formed the Retail Industry Cargo Security Council, which will be associated with the Washington-based National Cargo Security Council.The new group will concentrate on reducing losses incurred from theft, including shoplifting, and large scale cargo theft.
The idea came from Mark Schnupp, a former police officer in Richmond, Va., and senior investigator at Dayton Hudson. Schnupp was in-spired by a similar effort carried out by computer manufacturers and technology shippers whereby the group conducts security audits of transportation providers and vendors, withholding shipments from those who fail. Journal of Commerce (08/17/99) P. 1
Man Dies in Crash of Two Tractor-Trailers
Two tractor-trailers collided before 1 a.m. Monday at the intersection of Routes 17 and 29 in Fauquier County, Va., which is considered a dangerous intersection and is scheduled by the Virginia Transportation Department for a 2005 rebuilding.Killed in the crash was Terry Fleming, 22, of Glen Allen, Va., a passenger in one of the trucks. The driver of that truck is in serious condition at Inova Fairfax Hospital, while the driver of the other truck received minor injuries. Eight hundred local residents lost power as a result of the collision. Washington Post (08/17/99) P. B3
Drive Is On for Separate Freeway Lanes for Trucks
The Southern California Association of Governments, which since April has been studying the feasibility of adding truck lanes to the 60 Freeway, says it will extend the study to consider truck lanes for Interstates 15 and 710.These proposed truck lanes could be hooked up to the proposed 60 Freeway lanes — the I-15 lanes could connect the 60 Freeway truck lanes to Barstow, while the I-710 lanes could connect the 60 Freeway truck lanes to Long Beach.
Association project manager Kristine Leiphart says the study will last a year and a half and consider environmental impacts, price and such possibilities as double decks.
Using 1998 figures from the association, a 40% rise in Southern California truck volume by 2020 has been predicted. The association will have to decide where to place truck lanes.
ack Jones Trucking President Valerie Liese suggests, "Since people don't use the carpool lanes like they should, they should convert them into truck lanes."
In addition, the study will have to consider where to find more land for the expansion, which could be tough along the Pomona Freeway, which already has plenty of adjacent development. After deciding on expansion plans, the association will have to decide how to fund the construction, which could perhaps involve bonds, a referendum on taxes, or public-private partnerships. The Business Press/California Online (08/16/99); Eventov, Adam
Power Play
The Intermodal Transportation Simulation System's Laboratory at the National Aviation and Transportation Center allows users to model intermodal systems in three dimensions.The system includes equipment to give sounds and smells to the model and could even add vibration.
The ITSS project began three and a half years ago and has been in service for a year. NATC can ignore policy issues that the Transportation Department's Volpe Center has to consider. It intends to build an office park for high-tech companies in the New Jersey area.
Four workstations, each covering one mode of transportation, are hooked up to a Silicon Graphics Octane server. The sound and smell simu-lators are linked to a video wall that puts together visual data from the workstations. The modeling system runs on four-Dviz, a program from Infinity Technologies.
Infinity principal Bing Zeng says the software is not for "simple street development," however, "if you are doing a billion-dollar project affecting life for 100 years you cannot afford not to do it." Clifford Bragdon, who holds the ITSS patent, says the system could be used for planning and feasibility studies, as well as for simulating past accidents.
Already, MagLev 2000 of Florida Corp. had the NATC model a 20.5-mile freight-and-passenger train project for the Florida Transportation Department, which wanted to evaluate such things as how the project would affect the environment and whether riders would be nauseated on the 220-mph runs.
The Federal Rail Administration has a short list of seven high-speed transportation projects, and the Florida project is among them.
MagLev 2000 of Florida executive director John Morena says his company's employees "still use [the model] for expressions of engineering data."
Federal and state agencies are interested in seeing simulations of projects in actual operation. The ITSS lab is talking with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for modeling intermodal operations at Marine Ocean Based Terminal Bayonne. Traffic World (08/16/99) Vol. 259, No. 7; P. 38; Hickey, Kathleen
The Most Dangerous Mile
The mile with the most truck accidents in California is at the interchange of Interstates and 710 east of downtown Los Angeles, next to a connecting road that the California Transportation Department says was cutting-edge at its 1950s construction but has been obsolete for some 30 years.The mile in question, on which the California Highway Patrol responded to 302 truck crashes between 1994 and 1998, is on I-5 between the connecting road and Indiana Street. In a typical hour, the transportation department says, the mile handles 1,200 trucks and 12,000 other vehicles that all have to fight for position as the trucks merge into the fast lane from the connecting road.
The 88 mile Los Angeles County stretch of I-5, which has the most truck accidents in California and the state's biggest truck-traffic volume, sees double the amount of truck crashes as runner-up I-880 in Alameda County.
During the 1994-1998 period, I-5 in Los Angeles County saw 45 deaths and 1,040 injuries in truck crashes, compared with 11 deaths and 964 injuries on I-880.
The mile with the second most accidents in the state was I-710 coming up to the I-5 exit, where truckers have to get all the way to the left to make the exit, then merge into the left lane of I-5. That mile saw 293 truck crashes from 1994 to 1998.
The Los Angeles Times did an analysis faulting truckers with 50% of truck crashes in the state, but the I-710/I-5 interchange saw 90% of the truck crashes resulting from the truckers' behavior.
But CHP Officer Dan Luttio says the real problem is the interchange.
Designers intended the interchange to allow vehicles to move from I-710's fast lane to I-5's fast lane without having to drop too much in speed. However, increasing traffic volumes made that design obsolete.
Alto Systems trucker Luis Aceves says the transportation department could keep trucks off the ramp, but other truckers would probably have trouble getting to some destinations if they had to take the Pomona Freeway instead, since in that area many streets are closed to trucks. Officer Luttio says, "The best advice I can give anybody going through that stretch of road [i.e., the I-710/I-5 interchange] is, don't drive on the right side of a big-rig truck." Los Angeles Times (08/15/99) P. A8; Herndon, Ray F.
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