Public and Private Benefits in Intelligent Transportation Systems/Commercial Vehicle Operations: Electronic Clearance and Supply Chain Management

Technological innovations have recently changed many of the ways the private trucking industry operates. These changes have enabled trucking firms to monitor more closely the distribution of goods and services, improve productivity, and develop higher levels of customer satisfaction. Of these innovations, ITS related applications play an important role in creating benefits for the private sector. ITS technologies are also increasingly offering the potential to bring about change to state and national agencies charged with overseeing goods movement in trucking. Recent research has shown that public agencies may be able to significantly reduce costs through the adoption of certain ITS applications. Given the facts that the private sector has been experiencing the benefits brought about by innovations in transportation and ITS, experience in the private sector may offer guidance to public agencies wishing to adopt a given ITS technology. Despite the fact that the public and private sectors often use technologies in different ways, categories of benefits may be similar, and lessons from implementation may be transferable between the two. This report gives a brief overview of the studied benefits of ITS to private firms and the experienced and expected benefits to the public sector. As specific examples of the ways in which technology has changed the way private trucking firms operate, Electronic clearance and supply chain management are looked at. Electronic clearance is an ITS application that allows trucks to use transponders to move through vehicle inspections stations and border crossing with minimal delay. Supply chain management is a concept increasingly employed by private firms to increase productivity. Though not directly associated with ITS applications, supply chain management relies largely on technology-based process monitoring to realize its benefits. Public agencies may be able to extract some valuable lessons from supply chain management in the potential to apply its principles to vehicle operations and regulatory oversight.