The inland waterway transportation system of the United States (U.S.) handles 11.7 billion tons of freight annually and connects the heartland of the U.S. with the rest of the world by providing a fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly mode of transportation. This dissertation aims to create decision support tools for maritime stakeholders to measure the economic impacts of the inland waterway transportation systems under real world scenarios including disruptions, demand changes, port expansion decisions, and channel deepening investments. Monte Carlo simulation, system dynamics, discrete-event simulation, agent-based modeling, and multiregional input-output modeling techniques are utilized to analyze the complex relationships between inland waterway transportation system components and regional economic impact factors. The first research contribution illustrates that the expected duration of a disruption determines whether decision makers are better off waiting for the waterway system to reopen or switching to an alternative mode of transportation. Moreover, total disruption cost can be reduced by increasing estimation accuracy of disruption duration. The second research contribution shows that without future investment in inland waterway infrastructure, a sustainable system and associate economic impacts cannot be generated in the long-term. The third research contribution illustrates that investing in bottleneck system components results in higher economic impact than investing in non-bottleneck components. The developed models can be adapted to any inland waterway transportation system in the U.S. by utilizing data obtained by publically available sources to measure the economic impacts under various scenarios to inform capital investment decisions and support an economically sustainable inland waterway transportation system.

Inland Waterway Transportation explores how tools of economic analysis can improve the efficiency of both public and private investment in inland waterway transportation. Originally published in 1969, this study investigates how waterway transportation has been affected by public operating policy, costs and charges for the use of waterways in the United States as well as the impact of relationships central to waterway policy and individual firms such as the effect of the waterway environment on a firm’s efficiency. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies and professionals.

This report presents estimates of the economic development impacts due to savings in delivered costs of commodities transported on the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. The multiple-region variable input/output model is used to generate the estimates of project impacts. This economic model presents a national view of development impacts from this transportation system. From $50 million transport savings in 1978 the model estimates that 454 additional jobs were created in the 26 waterway counties in Oklahoma and Arkansas, 337 additional jobs were created in the rest of Oklahoma and Arkansas and 1,929 jobs were created in the rest of the U.S. These results make a potentially important contribution to the understanding of the way that transportation projects influence economic development. Far more jobs are created in those areas which receive the savings in delivered costs. This model has been used to generate estimates of the development impacts due to the flood control, hydropower, and recreation features of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. Keywords: Multiregional variable input-output model; Regional technical coefficients; Trade coefficients; Equilibrium price impact; Industrial impact; Economic impact; Inland waterways.

Economic benefits of navigation projects consist of two components, transportation savings and lock delay reductions resulting from navigation improvements. When demand for lock usage exceeds the available supply of the lock, some traffic cannot use the lock. In particular, as the amount of traffic passing through a lock increases, delays at the lock increase due to increased levels of congestion. This raises the cost of transportation on the waterway. At some point the increased costs will exceed those of some alternative mode for some movements, and shippers of these movements will find it more economical to use an alternative transportation mode. This paper includes a model description, sample input data, test case, and mathematical description and proof of systemic equilibrium.

How reliability of the Inland Waterway System impacts economic competitiveness : hearing before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, second session, April 18, 2012.