| The amount of containerized freight steadily grows due to prosperous international trade and globalization. In the United States, the transportation infrastructure including highways, railways, and waterways struggles due to the constrained capacity of throughput. This study optimizes and simulates the containerized imports from foreign trade partners to destinations in the United States through North American infrastructure using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). With detailed investigation at each of the transportation segment levels of the freight flow, this study simulates the feasibility of transportation resource sharing in North America, especially during certain circumstances, for example, during a disruption in transportation. In addition, a discrete event simulation emulates infrastructure disruption and estimates the impact of unexpected events and alternative flows into the United States. The research sought (1) to utilize limited transportation resources and (2) to identify and integrate the transportation infrastructure in North America, including Mexico and Canada. GIS visualization for the container flow provides information about freight directions and density for multiple modes. Simulation results of port disruption scenarios show how integrated transportation resources can mitigate the impact of disruption from main distribution channels. |
