The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) recently completed its first statewide long-range Freight Plan. Given the uncertainty of future economic conditions, the second generation Oregon StateWide Integrated Model (SWIM2) was used to evaluate the implications of uncertain economic conditions to long range freight planning. Several lessons learned from past analyses prompted changes to the analysis process followed for this particular project. The Oregon Freight Plan analysis enabled us to identify ways modeling services can be more effective in supporting long range planning. While having sophisticated tools to conduct the analysis is important, other aspects of the planning analysis process appear to be just as important, in some cases perhaps even more important than the tools themselves. This paper aims to share some of the strategies Oregon has identified as key to providing effective modeling services to our planning peers.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 410: Freight Transportation Surveys profiles the state of the practice in methods and techniques used to survey and collect data on freight transportation. The report also examines issues, identifies gaps in knowledge, and notes areas for potential future research in the area of freight transportation systems.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 716: Travel Demand Forecasting: Parameters and Techniques provides guidelines on travel demand forecasting procedures and their application for helping to solve common transportation problems.