The Importance 

of Highways to 

U.S. Agriculture

December 2020

United States Department of Agriculture
ii The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Agriculture in the interest of information exchange. The 

United States Government assumes no liability for the contents or use thereof.

The United States Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely 

because they are considered essential to the objective of this report.

NOTICE

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The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture iii

The development of this report coincided with the advent of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has had multiple impacts 

that could affect agricultural highway freight, including disruptions to supply chains, shifts in food production and consumption patterns, 

workforce impacts, and fluctuations in fuel taxes and other revenues. In addition, there have been wide-reaching changes in overall 

macroeconomic conditions in the United States and overseas, including changes in economic output and exchange rates. The trajectory 

and long-term consequences of these impacts are difficult to forecast, making it unclear whether and when “normal” conditions may 

resume. This introduces additional uncertainty into the analysis. It is also important to note that, at the time this report was prepared, 

the available data sources, estimates, and future projections were largely developed prior to the pandemic and do not reflect these 

impacts.

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1. REPORT DATE (DD-MM-YYYY)

16-12-2020

2. REPORT TYPE

Technical Report

3. DATES COVERED (From - To)

November 2019 - December 2020

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

5a. CONTRACT NUMBER

5b. GRANT NUMBER

5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER

6. AUTHOR(S)

Kevin McCoy, Sean Peirce, Gary Baker, Ryan Endorf, Christina Foreman, 

Rachel Galton, Michelle Gilmore, Danielle Kittredge, Kendall Mahavier, 

Daniel DJ Mason, David Pace, Sari Radin, Emma Vinella-Brusher

5d. PROJECT NUMBER

51OS96A119

5e. TASK NUMBER

TH995, TH996, UK067, UK068

5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER

V-320

7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

U.S. Department of Transportation 

55 Broadway Street,

Cambridge, MA 02142

8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION 

REPORT NUMBER

DOT-VNTSC-USDA-21-01

9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

Agricultural Marketing Service

U.S. Department of Agriculture 

Stop 0266

USDA AMS TM TSD

1400 Independence Ave SW 4523-S 

10. SPONSOR/MONITOR'S ACRONYM(S)

USDA AMS TM TSD

11. SPONSOR/MONITOR'S REPORT 

NUMBER(S)

TS295.12-20

12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

No restrictions.

13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

14. ABSTRACT

This report provides information to inform the transportation planning and project selection processes that build and 

maintain the highway infrastructure upon which the agriculture industry relies upon for safe and efficient transportation of 

goods. It demonstrates the interconnected nature of agricultural freight and highlights the need for cooperation across 

jurisdictions via 1) A summary of the economic significance of highway infrastructure to the agriculture industry; 2) 

Identification of High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways based on 2018 commodity flows; 3) Modeled projections of 

future infrastructure conditions and performance; 4) Identification of efforts to improve agricultural freight movements.

15. SUBJECT TERMS

agriculture, freight, highway, freight data, freight analysis, economic analysis

16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF 

ABSTRACT

UU

18. NUMBER 

OF 

PAGES

147

19a. NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON

Adam Sparger a. REPORT

U 

b. ABSTRACT

U 

c. THIS PAGE

U 

19b. TELEPHONE NUMBER (Include area code)

202-205-8701

Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8/98)

Prescribed by ANSI Std. Z39.18
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The project team would like to thank the following organizations for graciously providing their

valuable perspectives and insights during the development of this report.

U.S. Department of Transportation 

Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy

Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Federal Highway Administration Office of Freight Management and Operations

Agriculture Industry Groups

Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC)

Agriculture Transportation Working Group (ATWG)

Membership Organization

National Association of Counties (NACo)

Regional Freight Organization

Bi-State Development Corporation St. Louis Regional Freightway

State Departments of Transportation

Texas Department of Transportation

California Department of Transportation

Iowa Department of Transportation

Missouri Department of Transportation

North Carolina Department of Transportation

Washington State Department of Transportation
vi The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures..................................................................................................................................... vii

List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... xi

Acronyms ............................................................................................................................................ xiii

Section 1: Introduction..................................................................................................................... 1

Section 2: Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry ..... 12

Section 3: Stakeholder Engagement............................................................................................. 20

Section 4: Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance ............................................................. 27

Section 5: Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios............................................................ 79

Section 6: Notable Practices Case Studies................................................................................... 92

Section 7: Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies................................................ 113

Section 8: Conclusion....................................................................................................................... 131

Bibliography and Data Sources....................................................................................................... 134

Appendix A: Economic Significance of Surface Transportation to U.S. Agriculture

Appendix B: Analysis Corridor Condition, Performance, and Commodity Flow Data Visualizations

Appendix C: Methodology

Appendix D: Detailed Commodity Production and Flow Data by State
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Modeled Agricultural and Total Freight Flows on U.S. Highways, 2015 ..............................................................5

Figure 2: Value of U.S. Shipments by Transportation Mode in 2018 ..................................................................................6

Figure 3: Ton-Miles of U.S. Shipments by Transportation Mode and Distance in 2018 .....................................................7

Figure 4: Modal Transportation Characteristics of Agricultural Commodities by Tonnage, 2018 .....................................13

Figure 5: Transportation Cost in Million 2009 Dollars ..........................................................................................................15

Figure 6: U.S. and Brazil Soybean Total Transportation Costs to Shanghai, China.............................................................16

Figure 7: U.S. Agricultural Supply Chain .................................................................................................................................17

Figure 8: Percent of Roadways in Poor Condition (International Roughness Index (IRI)>170) by Functional System......19

Figure 9: High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways (HDAH)............................................................................................28

Figure 10: Conceptual Map of Agricultural Trade Flows........................................................................................................29

Figure 11: United States Multimodal Freight Flows...............................................................................................................29

Figure 12: Map of County-Level Production of Selected Commodities and Top 10 Agriculture Producing States in 

2017 .......................................................................................................................................................................32

Figure 13: Map of the HDAH Overlaid with County-Level Production of Selected Commodities........................................32

Figure 14: Dot Density Map of Grain Production in 2017, Overlaid With Volume Moved on the HDAH ............................33

Figure 15: Dot Density Map of Selected Fruits and Vegetables Production in 2017, Overlaid With Volume Moved on 

the HDAH................................................................................................................................................................34

Figure 16: Dot Density Map of Dairy Cows in 2017, Overlaid With Volume of Milk and Dairy Products Moved on the 

HDAH ......................................................................................................................................................................34

Figure 17: Dot Density Map of Livestock in 2017, Overlaid With Volume of Livestock Moved on the HDAH ....................35

Figure 18: Dot Density Map of Poultry in 2017, Overlaid With Volume of Poultry Moved on the HDAH............................35

Figure 19: Functional Class System .......................................................................................................................................36

Figure 20: Map of HDAH with Segments On and Off the National Highway System...........................................................37

Figure 21: HDAH Mileage by Functional Class ......................................................................................................................37

Figure 22: Percentage of HDAH Mileage On and Off the Interstate System ......................................................................37

Figure 23: Map of the Federal-Aid Highway Network ............................................................................................................39
viii The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

LIST OF FIGURES (continued)

Figure 25: Map of the National Highway Freight Network (NHFN) ......................................................................................39

Figure 24: Map of the National Highway System (NHS) .......................................................................................................39

Figure 26: Map of High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways (HDAH) ............................................................................39

Figure 27: Map of 17 Analysis Corridors.................................................................................................................................43

Figure 28: Context Map of Corridor #1...................................................................................................................................45

Figure 29: Ten Bridges Rated in ‘Poor’ Condition Exist in the 75 Miles South of Stockton, CA .........................................46

Figure 30: Context Map of Corridor #2...................................................................................................................................47

Figure 31: Share of Corridor #2 with Reliable Truck Travel Times: Atlanta Metro Compared to the Rest of the

Corridor ..................................................................................................................................................................48

Figure 32: Context Map of Corridor #3...................................................................................................................................49

Figure 33: Corridor #3 Volumes by Commodity Compared to Average Analysis Corridor Volumes....................................50

Figure 34: Context Map of Corridor #4...................................................................................................................................51

Figure 35: Twelve Poorly Rated Bridges Exist in a Less Than 100 Mile Span on Corridor #4............................................52

Figure 36: Context Map of Corridor #5...................................................................................................................................53

Figure 37: [Image] Bulk Liquid Truck Loading Milk - Dairy Travels in Very High Volumes Across Pennsylvania, Which 

Has More Dairy Farms Than Every State Except Wisconsin ...............................................................................54

Figure 38: Context Map of Corridor #6...................................................................................................................................55

Figure 39: [Image] Large Herd of Angus Cross Beef Steers - Corridor #6 Carries an Especially High Volume of Live 

Cattle, Processed Meat, and Dairy Products .......................................................................................................56

Figure 40: Context Map of Corridor #7...................................................................................................................................57

Figure 41: [Image] Semi-Trailer Full of Oranges - Citrus Fruits Move in High Volumes Along Corridor #7.........................58

Figure 42: Context Map of Corridor #8...................................................................................................................................59

Figure 43: Average Annual Fatalities Involving a Truck per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled on Corridor #8, 2014-

2018.......................................................................................................................................................................60

Figure 44: Context Map of Corridor #9...................................................................................................................................61

Figure 45: Share of Corridor #9 with Reliable Truck Travel Times: Nashville to Atlanta Compared to the Southern 

Half of the Corridor................................................................................................................................................62
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture ix

LIST OF FIGURES (continued)

Figure 46: Context Map of Corridor #10 ................................................................................................................................63

Figure 47: Pavement Condition Rating of Corridor #10 Compared to Average of All Other Analysis Corridors.................64

Figure 48: Context Map of Corridor #11 ................................................................................................................................65

Figure 49: Poorly Rated Bridges in the Minneapolis region on Corridor #11, an Important Hub for Grains 

Processing..............................................................................................................................................................66

Figure 50: Context Map of Corridor #12 ................................................................................................................................67

Figure 51: Share of Corridor #12 with Reliable Truck Travel Times: East and West of Allentown, PA ...............................68

Figure 52: Context Map of Corridor #13 ................................................................................................................................69

Figure 53: Millions of Ton-Miles Moved Per Commodity for Corridor #13 Versus Average of All Other Analysis 

Corridors.................................................................................................................................................................70

Figure 54: Context Map of Corridor #14 ................................................................................................................................71

Figure 55: [Image] Grain Elevator Along the Columbia River Between Oregon and Washington - Corridor #14 

Carries Higher Volumes of Wheat Than Any Other Analysis Corridor.................................................................72

Figure 56: Context Map of Corridor #15 ................................................................................................................................73

Figure 57: Pavement and Bridge Condition of Corridor #15 Versus the Average of all Other Analysis Corridors .............74

Figure 58: Context Map of Corridor #16 ................................................................................................................................75

Figure 59: Context Map of Corridor #17.................................................................................................................................77

Figure 60: Corridor #17 Congestion Levels Based on Roadway Mileage ............................................................................78

Figure 61: State Freight Plan Investments, 2016-2020, by Project Type and HERS Modeling Capability (Millions $).....81

Figure 62: State Freight Plan Projects by Type and Cost, Fiscal Years 2016-2020 ............................................................83

Figure 63: State Freight Plan Projects Affecting the High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways by Type and Cost, 

Fiscal Years 2016-2020........................................................................................................................................84

Figure 64: Comparison of State Freight Plans and HERS Outputs by Project Type ($ millions).........................................87

Figure 65: Comparison of State Freight Plans to HERS Output by Functional Class ($ Millions).......................................88

Figure 66: Annual Truck Cost Savings for Alternative Investment Level Scenarios.............................................................90

Figure 67: Benefits and Costs (in Billion $)............................................................................................................................91
x The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

LIST OF FIGURES (continued)

Figure 68: Average BCR over a 5-Year Modeling Period........................................................................................................91

Figure 69: Bridges in the State of Missouri Slated for Investment Between 2020 and 2023 Under the Focus on 

Bridges Program ....................................................................................................................................................96

Figure 70: Apple Supply Chain in Relation to WSDOT’s 2017 Truck Freight Economic Corridors......................................99

Figure 71: Proposed Site Plan of the Burlington Junction Railway’s Transloading Facility, Awarded a LIFTS Grant in 

2019.......................................................................................................................................................................102

Figure 72: Example VCAP matrix............................................................................................................................................106

Figure 73: Photo of St. Louis and the Mississippi River Showing River, Port, and Rail Freight Activity ............................109

Figure 74: The Texas Freight Advisory Committee Logo .......................................................................................................112
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture xi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Cost-to-Export and Key Agricultural Exports by Country .........................................................................................16

Table 2: Data Sources for Defining and Describing the HDAH..............................................................................................30

Table 3: Focus Commodities and Top 10 Producing States for Each Commodity Group ...................................................31

Table 4: Highway Systems and Network Definitions..............................................................................................................38

Table 5: Total Tonnage and Market Value of Focus Commodity Groups Moved on HDAH..................................................42

Table 6: Corridor #1 Major Highways......................................................................................................................................45

Table 7: Corridor #1 Key Commodities ...................................................................................................................................46

Table 8: Corridor #2 Major Highways......................................................................................................................................47

Table 9: Corridor #2 Key Commodities...................................................................................................................................48

Table 10: Corridor #3 Major Highways ...................................................................................................................................49

Table 11: Corridor #3 Key Commodities ................................................................................................................................50

Table 12: Corridor #4 Major Highways ...................................................................................................................................51

Table 13: Corridor #4 Key Commodities ................................................................................................................................52

Table 14: Corridor #5 Major Highways ...................................................................................................................................53

Table 15: Corridor #5 Key Commodities ................................................................................................................................54

Table 16: Corridor #6 Major Highways ...................................................................................................................................55

Table 17: Corridor #6 Key Commodities.................................................................................................................................56

Table 18: Corridor #7 Major Highways ...................................................................................................................................57

Table 19: Corridor #7 Key Commodities ................................................................................................................................58

Table 20: Corridor #8 Major Highways ...................................................................................................................................59

Table 21: Corridor #8 Key Commodities.................................................................................................................................60

Table 22: Corridor #9 Major Highways ...................................................................................................................................61

Table 23: Corridor #9 Key Commodities ................................................................................................................................62

Table 24: Corridor #10 Major Highways .................................................................................................................................63

Table 25: Corridor #10 Key Commodities ..............................................................................................................................64
xii The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

LIST OF TABLES (continued)

Table 26: Corridor #11 Major Highways.................................................................................................................................65

Table 27: Corridor #11 Key Commodities...............................................................................................................................66

Table 28: Corridor #12 Major Highways.................................................................................................................................67

Table 29: Corridor #12 Key Commodities ..............................................................................................................................68

Table 30: Corridor #13 Major Highways.................................................................................................................................69

Table 31: Corridor #13 Key Commodities ..............................................................................................................................70

Table 32: Corridor #14 Major Highways.................................................................................................................................71

Table 33: Corridor #14 Key Commodities ..............................................................................................................................72

Table 34: Corridor #15 Major Highways.................................................................................................................................73

Table 35: Corridor #15 Key Commodities ..............................................................................................................................74

Table 36: Corridor #16 Major Highways.................................................................................................................................75

Table 37: Corridor #16 Key Commodities...............................................................................................................................76

Table 37: Corridor #17 Major Highways..................................................................................................................................77

Table 38: Corridor #17 Key Commodities ..............................................................................................................................78

Table 40: HERS Model Predicted Benefits of State Freight Plan (SFP) Investment ...........................................................86

Table 41: HERS Model Predicted Outcomes of Several Levels of Highway Investment......................................................89

Table 42: Freight Planning and Analysis Case Studies ........................................................................................................93
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture xiii

ACRONYMS

LPA Local Public Agency

MDA Missouri Department of Agriculture

MPO Metropolitan Planning Organization

NACo National Association of Counties

NBI National Bridge Inventory

NCDOT North Carolina Department of Transportation

NFSP National Freight Strategic Plan

NHFN National Highway Freight Network

NHFP National Highway Freight Program

NHS National Highway System

NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

NPMRDS National Performance Monitoring Research Data Set

OST Office of the Secretary of Transportation

PHFS Primary Highway Freight System

RFI Request for Information

RPA Regional Planning Affiliation

SFP State Freight Plan

SR State Route

STCC Standard Transportation Commodity Code

STIP State Transportation Improvement Program

TOFC Trailer-on-flatcar (rail)

TRAM Travel Analysis Model (Iowa DOT)

TRRA Terminal Railroad Association

TTI Travel Time Index

TTTR Truck Travel Time Reliability

TXDOT Texas Department of Transportation

US United States 

USC United States Code 

USDA United States Department of Agriculture

USDOT United State Department of Transportation

VCAP Value, Condition, and Performance Model (Iowa DOT)

VMT Vehicle Miles Traveled

WSDOT Washington State Department of Transportation

AADT Average Annual Daily Traffic

AICP American Institute of Certified Planners

AMS Agricultural Marketing Service

ATRI American Transportation Research Institute

ATWG Agricultural Transportation Working Group

BCA Benefit-Cost Analysis

BCR Benefit-Cost Ratio

BTS Bureau of Transportation Statistics

CFS Commodity Flow Survey

COFC Container-on-flatcar (rail)

COVID-19 Novel 2019 Coronavirus Disease

CRAB County Road Administration Board

CSX CSX Railroad

DOT Department of Transportation

ERS Economic Research Service

FAC Freight Advisory Committee

FAF Freight Analysis Framework

FARS Fatality Analysis Reporting System

FAST Fixing America's Surface Transportation

FGTS Freight and Goods Transportation System 

FHWA Federal Highway Administration

FMCSA Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

FMSIB Federal Mobility Strategic Investment Board

GDP Gross Domestic Product

HDAH High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

HEPGIS Federal Highway Administration Office of Planning, 

Environment and Realty Geographic Information System

HERS Highway Economic Requirements System

HPMS Highway Performance Monitoring System

ICE Infrastructure Condition Evaluation 

INFRA Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (grant program)

IRI International Roughness Index

LIFTS Linking Iowa's Freight Transportation Systems (grant 

program)
xiv The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

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SECTION 1

Introduction
2 Introduction The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

INTRODUCTION

Agricultural products are transported as 

part of national and global supply chains 

that stretch from individual farms and 

ranches to destinations throughout the 

United States and abroad. This complex 

agricultural freight transportation system is 

multimodal, consisting of highways, railroads, 

inland waterways, ocean vessels, and air 

freight. Highways are the backbone of this 

system, providing critical “first and last mile” 

transportation connections to higher-capacity 

modes such as rail, barge, and ocean 

vessel, and for many products requiring 

long distance transportation. Almost all 

agricultural products travel by highway for at 

least a portion of their journey.

This report examines the 

importance of highway 

infrastructure to the efficient 

movement of domestic 

agricultural products 

and continued market 

competitiveness.

Despite the agriculture industry’s reliance on 

highway infrastructure, State Departments 

of Transportation (State DOTs), Metropolitan 

Planning Organizations (MPOs), and Local 

Public Agencies (LPAs) such as counties 

and cities, often do not have sufficient data 

or modeling tools to be able to analyze the 

performance of highway infrastructure, 

or to forecast the impacts of investment, 

for agricultural freight. The transportation 

planning process is changing to be more 

performance-based, with data analysis 

intended to help identify projects that 

will have the biggest impact on highway 

performance. However, transportation 

agencies still generally lack detailed 

information about how and where agricultural 

commodities are transported and may have 

limited direct engagement with agricultural 

shippers.

Many terms are used to refer to roads 

in the United States. For the purposes 

of this report, the term “highway” is 

used broadly, as defined in 23 USC § 

101(a)(11), to refer to all roads, streets, 

parkways, and supporting structures.

This includes both major routes such as 

Interstates and State Highways, as well 

as local and rural roads, all of which 

have important roles in transporting 

agricultural products.

Highways

The August 2019 report 

Importance of Inland Waterways 

to U.S. Agriculture, (USDA, 

2019), documents the critical 

role of barge transportation for 

agricultural products - grains 

and oilseeds in particular. 

These two reports are intended 

be used together to identify 

important infrastructure 

investments, to inform updates 

to State Freight Plans and LongRange Transportation Plans, to 

inform policy discussions, and 

to help identify priorities for 

future research.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Introduction 3

This report provides information to inform the transportation planning and 

project selection processes that build and maintain highway infrastructure 

that the agriculture industry relies upon for safe and efficient transportation 

of goods. The report demonstrates the interconnected nature of agricultural 

freight and highlights the need for cooperation across State and jurisdictional 

boundaries. 

This report includes:

● A summary of the economic significance of highway infrastructure to the 

agriculture industry;

● Identification of High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways (HDAH) 

based on 2018 commodity flows;

● Analysis of the performance of the HDAH and selected corridors within;

● Modeled projections of future highway freight infrastructure conditions 

and performance, including planned projects;

● Notable practices for addressing the infrastructure needs of the 

agriculture industry; and

● A framework for conceptualizing and coordinating efforts to improve 

agricultural freight movement in highway decision making.

Who Should Read This Report?

This report contains valuable information 

for transportation and agriculture industry 

stakeholders alike.

State Departments of Transportation 

(State DOTs) will find: 

● Information about how agricultural 

commodities flow through corridors both 

within their own States and through 

neighboring States.

● Notable practices demonstrating 

opportunities to incorporate agricultural 

data and considerations into planning 

and decision-making processes.

Local Public Agencies (LPAs) 

will find information highlighting the 

importance of local and county roads 

in supporting a global supply chain for 

agricultural products, and strategies for 

overcoming funding, data, and coordination 

barriers.

Agricultural freight shippers and 

carriers will find examples of the valuable 

role their perspective and knowledge can play 

in highway infrastructure planning.

This report was prepared by the U.S. Department of Transportation 

(U.S. DOT) Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) 

through a cooperative agreement overseen by the U.S. Department 

of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). The U.S. 

DOT Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy (OST-P) provided 

technical guidance and support to the project team. This partnership 

supports AMS’s mission to facilitate the efficient, fair marketing of U.S. 

agricultural products, as well as U.S. DOT’s strategic goals of investing in 

infrastructure and innovation to stimulate economic growth, productivity, 

and competitiveness by improving the safety and performance of the 

Nation’s transportation system.

About the Authors
4 Introduction The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Background

For more than 100 years, the U.S. 

Government has recognized well-maintained 

roads are indispensable to support the 

transport and economic competitiveness 

of agricultural goods. A common refrain 

of the Good Roads Movement of the early 

20th Century was that improved roads were 

needed “to get the farmer out of the mud” 

(Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), 

2001). One such farmer, living 15 miles 

north of Raleigh, North Carolina, related 

the condition of the roads in his area with 

his economic prospects, noting that “a 

bad road is a relentless tax assessor and a 

sure collector” (FHWA, 1976). The Federal 

Aid Road Act of 1916 sought to remedy 

this situation, establishing the first Federal 

funding program for roads, which USDA 

administered. This program launched a 

decades-long public works effort that built 

improved rural and county roads, connected 

to modern highways and eventually 

Interstates, serving nearly the entirety of the 

United States. 

Today, U.S. DOT administers transportation 

programs and works to “ensure that our 

Nation has the safest, most efficient and 

modern transportation system in the world, 

which improves the quality of life for all 

American people and communities, from 

rural to urban, and increases the productivity 

and competitiveness of American workers 

and businesses” (U.S. DOT, n.d.). The 

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) 

continues to represent the interests of 

farmers, by “administer[ing] programs that 

create domestic and international marketing 

opportunities for U.S. producers of food, 

fiber, and specialty crops” (USDA, n.d.). This 

report seeks to support the competitiveness 

of U.S. agriculture by encouraging continued 

investment in transportation infrastructure. 

In 2018, the U.S. 

transportation system moved 

a daily average of about 49 

million tons of freight, valued 

at nearly $53 billion.

Agricultural freight movement is essential 

for ensuring goods move at every level 

of the supply chain from farm to final 

product, and supports a number of 

national priorities:

Domestic food production:

The agriculture industry provides 

consumers with fresh, high-quality food 

that allows them to be healthy and 

productive in other sectors. Efficient 

transportation helps keep these prices 

low for consumers and allows for regional 

specialization and division of labor to 

move products from fertile agriculture 

production areas to major population 

centers.

Employment: Agriculture and related 

industries accounted for 11% of U.S. 

employment in 2017, equivalent to 21.6 

million jobs, including about 2.6 million 

jobs from direct on-farm employment 

(USDA, 2018).

Economic value: Agriculture commands 

approximately 5.5% of all U.S. Gross 

Domestic Product (GDP), a value over $1 

trillion in 2017 (USDA, 2018).

International competitiveness: The 

value of agricultural exports account for 

10-11% of all U.S. exports, and the freight 

system contributes to competitive prices 

(Cooke et al., 2017).

Importance to the U.S. Economy

Multimodal freight transportation is essential 

to the safe and efficient movement of 

commodities produced across economic 

sectors and is an important contributor to the 

U.S. economy. 

In 2018, the U.S. transportation system, for 

all products across all modes, moved a daily 

average of about 49 million tons of freight, 

valued at nearly $53 billion.1 This total is 

about $19 trillion a year. Furthermore, freight 

1 This number will seem large in comparison to U.S. 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) given how the freight 

value is counted—GDP does not count the value of 

“intermediate goods”, only the value of the finished 

product. However, for the value of freight shipped around 

the country, there are many intermediate goods that 

are likely double-counted. Additionally, goods moved by 

freight may include the value of imports, which would be 

a negative impact on GDP. 
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Introduction 5

Figure 1: Modeled Agricultural and Total Freight Flows on U.S. Highways, 2015

Source: Freight Analysis Framework, version 4.3 (Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and FHWA, 2017)
6 Introduction The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Truck

69%

Pipeline

8%

Rail

4.0%

Air

3.0%

Water

3%

Multiple modes, 

Other, or Unknown

13%

shipments are expected to increase by a 

total of 23% over the next 20 years (Bureau 

of Transportation Statistics (BTS) and FHWA, 

2019).

Agricultural products are the single largest 

user of freight services in the United States, 

comprising 24% of freight services across 

all modes by tonnage and 27% of all tonmiles. In 2018, 4.5 billion tons of agricultural 

products worth $3.1 trillion were moved 

across all transportation modes. Trucks 

account for 83% of agricultural freight 

movements by tonnage and 88% by market 

value. Trucks account for 56% of agricultural 

freight ton-miles, primarily due to the key role 

of rail and waterway modes for transporting 

grains over longer distances. Figure 1

demonstrates that agriculture is by far the 

largest component of highway freight by 

tonnage, on a number of major corridors—

particularly in the Midwest, and California 

(BTS and FHWA, 2019). 

The movement of agricultural freight is 

essential to feeding the U.S. population. 

When supply chains are operating effectively, 

most consumers likely think very little of the 

complex series of movements that bring food 

to their grocery stores and dinner tables. 

The fact that there are few major disruptions 

to the supply of food to people across the 

United States demonstrates the safe and 

efficient performance of freight systems, and 

the importance of maintaining this level of 

performance.

The majority of freight across all modes is 

moved by truck, and almost every agricultural 

freight trip includes at least one truck 

component in the full journey from farm to 

This report uses the term highway 

network to refer to any collection of 

highways linked together, and not to 

any specific, statutorily defined highway 

or freight networks. If a specific 

network is referred to in this report, 

its proper name is used (e.g., National 

Highway Freight Network, National 

Highway System).

Highway Network

The majority of freight across all modes is moved by truck, and 

almost every agricultural freight trip includes at least one truck 

component.

Figure 2: Value of U.S. Shipments by Transportation Mode in 2018 

Source: Freight Analysis Framework v4.5.1 (BTS and FHWA, 2019)
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Introduction 7

final destination. In 2018, trucks carried 

about 64% of U.S. freight (all commodity 

types) by weight and 69% by value (Figure 2). 

Trucks are particularly prevalent for shorter 

journeys, with modes such as rail becoming 

more prominent on longer trips (Figure 3).

U.S. investment in multimodal surface 

transportation systems has ensured that 

the cost of moving agricultural freight is 

a small percentage of overall agriculture 

costs, consisting of 3-4% across all 

modes (Canning, 2011). Maintaining the 

performance of the highway system—which 

is often the most expensive leg of the 

journey on a per ton-mile basis—is essential 

to keeping freight costs low and supporting 

continued economic competitiveness.

Section 2 of this report provides additional 

detail on the importance of surface 

transportation to the U.S. economy and 

movement of agricultural freight. The 

next section focuses on how highway 

infrastructure decisions are made and how 

the agriculture industry plays a role.

Figure 3: Ton-Miles of U.S. Shipments by Transportation Mode and Distance in 2018

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Other and Unknown

Pipeline

Multiple Modes and Mail

Air (including truck-air)

Water

Rail

Truck

Note: Air is not visible in the chart given that it accounts for less than 0.05% of total ton-miles 

for all distances.

Source: Freight Facts and Figures (BTS, n.d.)

Agricultural Freight in Transportation 

Planning

Transportation planning is rooted in long-term 

decision-making processes, drawing from 

data analysis, modeling, and stakeholder 

engagement. State DOTs and Metropolitan 

Planning Organizations (MPOs) undertake 

planning activities to articulate a long-range 

transportation plan (20 or more years) and 

a short-range transportation improvement 

program (3-5 years) based on that plan. 

State DOTs and LPAs implement projects and 

operate highways.

Agricultural Freight Data

Data analysis is a key component of 

transportation planning and decision-making. 

State DOTs and MPOs often rely on travel 

demand surveys and traffic demand modeling 

to understand how vehicles are using the 

transportation system and how demand 

may change over time. These models vary 

in their complexity and data sources used, 

but traditionally they have been focused on 

passenger travel and the peak commuter 

periods. This focus has begun to change in 

recent years, as more data have become 

available and as more advanced, multimodal 

models have been developed. However, many 

State DOTs and MPOs still lack detailed data 

or advanced analysis of freight supply chains. 

This report presents data about agricultural 

freight movements on U.S. highways to 

inform transportation planning, and to 

demonstrate analysis techniques with an 

explicit agricultural freight focus.
8 Introduction The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Agriculture Stakeholder Involvement

Producers and shippers of agricultural 

products are frequently involved in advocacy 

for changes in the legislative or policy 

arenas, but have not historically been 

frequent direct participants in transportation 

planning. Agricultural producers and 

shippers may struggle to engage because 

the long-range planning time horizons 

needed for transportation infrastructure do 

not neatly align with shorter-term business 

considerations. However, agricultural 

stakeholders can provide transportation 

agencies with valuable insights and data, 

communicate their challenges, and work in 

partnership to identify projects that will meet 

the future needs of the industry. A close 

partnership between transportation agencies 

and agricultural shippers benefits both 

groups by increasing the chances that key 

issues will be addressed and that projects 

will focus on the safety, congestion, and 

reliability of shipping routes most critical to 

the industry.

Federal Requirements

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act of 2012 (MAP-21) and the Fixing 

America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015 (FAST Act) each introduced freight-specific 

federal policy requirements for State DOTs. 

The National Highway Freight Program (NHFP), introduced in the FAST Act, introduced in 

the FAST Act, created for the first time a freight-specific funding source in the Federal-Aid 

Highway Program. To access these funds, State DOTs must develop and implement State 

Freight Plans that describe the State’s primary freight infrastructure across all major 

modes, the conditions and performance of those facilities, and an investment strategy for 

how the State’s NHFP apportionment will be used. 

These acts also strongly suggest that State DOTs more closely engage with freight 

stakeholders, including agricultural stakeholders, in transportation infrastructure 

planning. This report takes advantage of the State Freight Plan requirement to examine 

how State DOTs are planning to invest NHFP funds to maintain and enhance the highway 

infrastructure.

Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Introduction 9

KEY TRENDS

This section identifies 

seven key trends 

affecting agricultural 

freight transportation, 

based on ideas presented 

in the National Freight 

Strategic Plan (U.S. DOT, 

2020). 

Growing Population and 

Economy Advancing Technology

Changing Urban-Rural 

Dynamics Evolving Workforce

Infrastructure Condition and 

Funding Increasing Safety Concerns

Connected Supply Chains

GROWING POPULATION AND ECONOMY

• The U.S. population grew by 16% between 2000 and 2018, and is forecast 

to grow at an additional 1% annually. (Transportation Research Board, 2019; 

FHWA, 2019); approximately 53 tons of freight are moved for each American 

each year, with agriculture as the single largest contributor (BTS and FHWA, 

2019).

• Demand for freight is expected to increase by approximately 1.2% annually by 

2040, with demand for trucking expected to grow even faster, at 1.5% annually 

(BTS and FHWA, 2019).

• Production of the top two agricultural commodities, soybeans and corn, are 

both expected to grow faster than the rate of population growth, at about 1.2% 

annually (USDA, 2020b; see Appendix A).
10 Introduction The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

CHANGING URBAN-RURAL DYNAMICS

• As population has shifted from rural, 

agriculture-producing areas to urban areas, 

there is now more stress on urban highway 

systems where agricultural products 

often travel for processing, sale, and 

export (National Academies of Sciences, 

Engineering, and Medicine, 2019). Today, 

approximately four out of five U.S. residents 

now live in urban areas (U.S. Census Bureau, 

n.d.), and more than half of the population 

growth through 2040 is expected in just three 

States: Florida, California, and Texas (Weldon 

Cooper Center for Public Service, n.d.).

• Dependence on trucking has increased in 

rural areas due to the lack of, decline of, or 

withdrawal of rail service (USDA, 2010); in 

2016, 47% of truck vehicle miles traveled 

(VMT) occurs on rural roads (FHWA, n.d.).

CONNECTED SUPPLY CHAINS

• International trade and globalization of supply chains places increased demand on all segments and modes of freight 

transportation. 

• Demand for highway freight is related to the price of shipping via other freight modes; for instance, when the rates of rail 

transport increase, shippers will switch to highway transport as a lower cost substitute. 

• The effects of extreme weather events have demonstrated how disruptions to supply chains in one area can have cascading 

impacts across the system. For example, Superstorm Sandy temporarily eliminated key supply routes into and out of New York 

City, and recent flooding events in the Midwest disrupted production and closed highways. Both events caused a breakdown in 

supply chains and the ability to move agricultural products to market.

• Because rural road networks tend to be less dense than in more urbanized areas, detours due to disruptions often add 

several miles to a trip.

INFRASTRUCTURE CONDITION AND FUNDING

• 14% of the Nation’s rural roads have pavements 

in poor condition, and nearly 9.2% of rural bridges 

need rehabilitation, repair, or replacement (FHWA, 

2019). Poor road conditions contribute to higher 

operations costs by lowering fuel economy, reducing 

travel speeds, and increasing maintenance costs for 

vehicles.

• Locally-managed rural highways are often the 

first links in the agriculture supply chain, but local 

transportation agencies often have more constraints 

on funding and staff resources for infrastructure 

planning and investment, as compared with State 

DOTs.

• Today’s farming equipment and trucks are larger and 

heavier than those of the mid-20th century, putting 

additional stress on rural highways, many of which 

were originally designed with smaller vehicles in mind.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Introduction 11

ADVANCING TECHNOLOGY

• Advancements in driver-assistive technology 

such as adaptive cruise control and 

automatic emergency braking have the 

potential to improve safety.

• Longer term, automation technology and 

truck platooning have the potential to 

reshape the labor dynamics of the trucking 

industry.

• Advancements in communication technology, 

including the use of blockchain, may allow 

the industry to develop and maintain more 

granular datasets that describe freight 

volumes and reliability, including where 

individual products are produced, how 

and where they move, and where they are 

exported and consumed.

EVOLVING WORKFORCE

• Agriculture relies heavily on the trucking 

industry and the availability of drivers is 

critical during times such as planting and 

harvest.

• The trucking industry workforce is aging, 

and firms describe difficulty in both driver 

retention and attracting new drivers. 

(American Trucking Association, 2019). 

INCREASING SAFETY CONCERNS

• The trucking industry ranked “highway safety 

and crash reduction” a top policy issue for the 

first time in 2018 after fatal crash rates for 

large trucks began to climb in 2009 (American 

Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), 2018).

• Freight crashes have economic costs at every 

level of the industry. Crashes increase costs 

for the agriculture industry and contribute to 

congestion and delay.

• Fatalities resulting from truck-involved 

crashes made up 89.2% of all freight-related 

transportation fatalities and 12.8% of all highway 

fatalities in 2017 (Federal Motor Carrier Safety 

Administration (FMCSA), 2019).

• Approximately 57% of all fatal crashes involving 

large trucks occurred in rural areas (FMCSA, 

2019). There are higher fatality rates on rural 

non-Interstate routes, on which many agricultural 

products travel (TRIP, 2019).

• Excessive driver detention at facilities is a 

challenge to safety, as a 15-minute increase in 

average dwell time contributes to fatigue and is 

estimated to increase the expected crash rate by 

6.2% and cost the trucking industry about $300 

million annually (FMCSA, 2019).
SECTION 2

Economic Significance of 

Highway Infrastructure 

to the Agriculture 

Industry
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry 13

Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry

This section summarizes the key findings 

of the economic significance report 

(Appendix A) and establishes the importance 

of continued investment in highway 

infrastructure for the agriculture industry.2

Figure 4: Modal Transportation Characteristics of Agricultural Commodities by Tonnage, 2018 

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Newsprint/Paper

Logs

Paper or Paperboard Articles

Wood Products

Fertilizers

Animal Feed and Products

Tobacco Products

Alcoholic Beverages/Denatured Alcohol

Other Prepared (Fats and Oils)

Milled Grain and Bakery Products

Other Agricultural Products

Animals and Fish (Live)

Meat, Poultry, Fish, Seafood

Cereal Grains (includes seed)

Truck Rail Water Air (include truck-air) Pipeline Multiple Modes/Other

Note: Commodity categories based on Standard Classification of Transported Goods (SCTG) commodity 

codes. “Other Agricultural Products” includes soybeans and other oilseeds, vegetables, fruits and nuts, 

and fresh-cut flowers and plants. 

Source: Volpe Center analysis of Freight Analysis Framework v4.5.1 (BTS and FHWA, 2019)

Trucks carry the majority of agricultural freight across all 

commodity groups.

2 Appendix A was completed as an interim deliverable 

supporting the development of this report. As a result, 

some statistics presented in the Appendix use different 

data sources and/or do not reflect subsequent data 

updates, including Figure 4.

3 This figure drops to 30% on a ton-miles basis due to 

the key role of rail and waterway modes for transporting 

grains over longer distances.

Why is it important to keep 

agricultural freight costs low?

According to the Freight Analysis Framework 

(FAF), agriculture is the single largest user 

of freight, totaling 4.5 billion tons and 

$3.1 trillion in value in 2018. Figure 4 

demonstrates that trucks carry the majority 

of agricultural freight across all commodity 

groups. Truck mode share is especially high 

for meat, poultry, fish, and seafood (greater 

than 95%). Even grains, which frequently 

move long distances by rail and barge, have 

greater than 70% of tonnage moved by truck 

(Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) 

and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), 

2019).3

Agricultural freight depends on the smooth 

functioning of all parts of the transportation 
14 Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Impact of Infrastructure Investment

The U.S. is in a world economy where transportation costs play a major role 

in the profitability of many businesses. Farming is the greatest example of the 

importance of infrastructure because farmers rely on low-cost, effective transportation to literally send their crops to the other side of the world.

Improved Pavement Condition

Through maintenance/repair/

rehabilitation

Expanded Highway Capacity

Through added lanes or 

improvements in road design

Maintenance/Repair Costs

Through reduced wear and tear on 

vehicles

Labor/Fuel Costs

Through reduced travel time and 

improved reliability

Reduction in Truck Operating Costs

Greater Profit for 

Farmers

 Improved International 

Competitiveness

Reduced transportation costs could make 

American goods cheaper on the international 

market, giving the country an edge over 

competitors.

Lower transportation costs save 

farmers money and improve profit 

margins.

Infrastructure Investment

Source: Volpe Center analysis Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry 15

system to efficiently and cost-effectively move 

goods from farm to market. Transportation’s 

estimated share of the food dollar, in 

both cents per dollar as well as the total 

value in millions of dollars, can be seen in 

Figure 5. The strength of U.S. investment 

in transportation infrastructure over 

almost a century has resulted in very low 

transportation costs, only 3-4% of overall 

agricultural commodity prices (Figure 5).4

The small percentage of transportationrelated costs relative to overall production 

costs is critical for maintaining farm income 

and the competitive position of the U.S. 

agriculture industry. If transportation costs 

remain low, producers, which must absorb 

some or all transportation costs, can shift 

funds previously spent on transportation 

to other inputs, allowing them to increase 

their output. Generally, transportation costs 

have been one of the key ways that the 

4 The transportation component of the food dollar 

comprises all costs related to the transportation industry, 

excluding any energy-related costs. The other cost 

categories of the food dollar are: farm and agribusiness; 

food processing; food retailing; foodservices; energy; 

packaging; finance and insurance; advertising; and legal, 

accounting, and bookkeeping. Any transportation service 

costs incurred in the other industry groups are included 

in the overall transportation component. For a detailed 

description of how the food dollar is calculated, please 

see USDA’s report on the methodology (Canning, 2011).

Figure 5: Transportation Cost in Million 2009 Dollars

$20,000

$22,000

$24,000

$26,000

$28,000

$30,000

$32,000

$34,000

$36,000

$38,000

3

3.5

4

4.5

19931994199519961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015201620172018

Million 2009 Dollars

Cents per Food Dollar

Year

Transportation: Cents per Domestic Real Food Dollar

Transportation: Million 2009 Dollars

Source: Food Dollar Series (USDA, 2020a) 

Transportation Cost = 3-4% of 

overall “food dollar”

United States remains competitive against 

other countries, even as land and labor 

tend to be less expensive elsewhere. Should 

transportation costs increase, farm income 

will decrease, and the United States could 

lose this competitive advantage, particularly 

if other countries continue to improve their 

transportation infrastructure.

While the United States has a relatively 

low cost-to- export ratio for agricultural 

products, it faces close competition from top 

competitors for select commodities (Table 

1). The Cost-to-Export Indicator measures 

the fees levied on a 20-foot container in 

U.S. dollars. All the fees associated with 

completing the procedures to export the 

goods are included. These include costs for 

documents, administrative fees for customs 

clearance and technical control, customs 

broker fees, terminal handling charges and 

inland transport except tariffs or trade taxes.

For example, Brazil is one of the biggest 

competitors for U.S. agriculture, particularly 

for the largest U.S. agricultural exports of 
16 Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Table 1: Cost-to-Export and Key Agricultural 

Exports by Country 

Country Cost to Export 

Indicator

Top Agricultural 

Exports*

United 

States 1,224

Soybeans, Corn, 

Sorghum, Cotton, 

Wheat

Argentina 1,770 Soybeans, Corn, 

Sorghum

Australia 1,200 Sorghum, Wheat

Brazil 2,323 Soybeans, Corn

Canada 1,680 Soybeans, Wheat

China 823 Cotton

India 1,332 Cotton

Russia 2,401 Wheat

*An italicized commodity means that the country is the 

largest exporter of that commodity.

Note: Top agricultural exports from a country that are 

competitive with the United States in the world export 

market are listed. A country’s top agricultural export 

may not be listed in this table if it is only a small 

percent of the entire export market for that product.

Source: Doing Business Project (World Bank, 2015)

Figure 6: U.S. and Brazil Soybean Total Transportation Costs to Shanghai, China

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4Q1Q2Q3Q4

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

U.S. $/metric ton

Year

Santos Paranagua U.S. Gulf U.S. Pacific Northwest

Note: U.S. Gulf: From Minneapolis, MN, through the U.S. Gulf Coast; U.S. Pacific Northwest: From Fargo, 

ND, through the Pacific Northwest; Santos: From South Goiás, Brazil, data not available for 2018; 

Paranaguá: From North Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Source: Soybean Transportation Guide: Brazil Archive Reports (USDA, n.d.)

soybeans and corn. The U.S. used to be 

the largest exporter of soybeans; however, 

Brazil overtook the United States in soybean 

exports in 2013 and has remained the 

largest exporter since then. Brazil has a lower 

cost of production than the United States 

due to lower costs for land and labor (Salin 

and Somwaru, 2018). Part of what allows 

the United States to remain competitive 

is transportation efficiency, but Brazil 

has been taking steps in recent years to 

improve its highway and rail systems to lower 

transportation costs to ports, increasing 

competitiveness in the export market.

Since 2014, costs for major Brazilian ports 

have dropped and closely approximate costs 

in the United States (Figure 6). Because the 

rail and barge components make up more of 

the overall cost for exported soybeans, it is 

possible that improvements to railroads and 

inland waterways could have a larger effect 

on the U.S. cost-to-export than improvements 

to highways. However, improvements to 

highways are also important, as trucks 

provide the connections to elevators and 

processors located along railroads and 

waterways (Figure 7).
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry 17

Figure 7: U.S. Agricultural Supply Chain

Source

Inland Terminal/Hub

Storage

Processing Plant

Intermediary

(May move between one 

or more intermediary steps 

before arriving at destination.)

Export Port

Domestic Use

 Destination

Elevator

Rail

Barge

Truck

KEY

Source: Adapted from “U.S. Agricultural Supply Chain for Raw and Processed Products.” Study of Rural Transportation Issues (USDA, 2010)
18 Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

What are the potential impacts 

of investment or lack thereof in 

surface transportation?

The capacity of the transportation system 

is expected to continue to take on even 

higher freight volumes over time. Therefore, 

investments in transportation infrastructure 

must keep up with this expansion in order to 

maintain fluidity and competitiveness.

Producers operate under tight profit margins, 

and the performance of the transportation 

system is essential for farm income, 

domestic food prices, and international 

competitiveness. In 2013, USDA reported 

that almost 70% of all farms were in the 

“critical zone,” meaning that their operating 

profit margin (the ratio of operating profit 

to gross cash farm income) was less than 

10% (Hoppe, 2015). Thus, small changes in 

costs can have significant impacts on profit 

margins for farmers, especially smaller farms 

that have tighter margins than large farms 

(Hoppe, 2015). Although it varies widely, the 

average ratio of operating cost to operating 

revenue is a tight 95% in over-the-road 

long-haul trucking, demonstrating that the 

sector is highly competitive, and approaching 

what economists call atomistic or perfect 

competition.

Given that trucks are generally more efficient 

than rail for trips under 500 miles, trucks 

are particularly crucial for short, domestic 

movements. For example, trucking is 

essential to efficiently moving corn from 

Poor infrastructure condition and congestion pose increasingly 

significant challenges to the agriculture industry.

Credits: Natalia Bratslavsky via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Economic Significance of Highway Infrastructure to the Agriculture Industry 19

farms to nearby ethanol plants. For longer 

trips, trucking is more expensive per ton-mile 

than rail and inland waterways, but trucks 

are still essential for transportation between 

intermodal facilities. Trucking provides a 

critical link between farmers, ranchers, 

manufacturers, feedlots, and rail, barge, and 

port terminals.

Poor infrastructure condition and congestion 

pose increasingly significant challenges 

to the agriculture industry. Poor road 

conditions contribute to higher operations 

costs by lowering fuel economy and raising 

maintenance costs for vehicles (Figure 8). 

Road congestion imposes labor, fuel, and 

delay costs, ultimately driving up costs 

and reducing competitiveness. These cost 

increases could then raise the transportation 

share of the food dollar from 3-4% to a 

higher value. Investment must match or 

exceed the rate of deterioration to keep 

roads in good condition. Research studies 

demonstrate a positive return on investment 

on agricultural output given increases in road 

disbursements, allowing costs to be shifted 

to other areas (Onofri and Fulginiti, 2008).

Targeted investments in highway 

infrastructure can help address condition 

challenges. The impacts of infrastructure 

improvements on the agriculture sector are 

vast, encompassing agricultural productivity, 

transportation costs, food prices, and 

international competitiveness. All these areas 

are important in analyzing where the greatest 

return on investment could be for agricultural 

freight projects.

Figure 8: Percent of Roadways in Poor Condition (International Roughness Index (IRI)>170) by 

Functional System

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Urban Collectors

Urban Minor Arterials

Urban Other Principal Arterials

Rural Collectors

Rural Minor Arterials

Urban Other Freeways and Expressways

Urban Interstates

Rural Other Principal Arterials

Rural Interstate

Source: Condition of U.S. Roadways by Functional System (BTS, 2019)
SECTION 3

Stakeholder Engagement
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Stakeholder Engagement 21

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

The project team reached out to 

stakeholders representing State and local 

transportation agencies, agriculture industry 

groups, and a regional freight planning 

organization to discuss their perspectives 

on the opportunities and challenges 

facing agricultural highway freight, and 

how planning and investment practices 

can support the best future outcomes. 

Stakeholders provided input through semistructured telephone interviews and follow-up 

conversations.

The primary goals of 

the outreach were to:

● Understand how States, regions, 

and local governments study, plan 

for, and prioritize investments 

in highway infrastructure for 

agricultural freight; 

● Identify common challenges 

for shippers and infrastructure 

owners; and

● Identify notable practices and 

strategies for analyzing and 

prioritizing highway infrastructure 

for agricultural freight (see Section 

6).

Stakeholder Engagement Themes

Stakeholder perspectives often touch on topics that are not obvious through 

analysis of national freight datasets and provide greater context for interpreting how 

agricultural freight infrastructure planning and project development work on the 

ground. 

1 The “first and last miles” of agricultural truck trips are the costliest part of 

the overall journey. 

2 Continued investment in highway infrastructure is critical to improving 

performance. 

3 Decentralized local decision making is a barrier for industry stakeholders 

to communicate challenges and needs. 

4 Data gaps for rural roads limit transportation agencies’ ability to 

understand how products move from farm to market. 

5 Building resiliency and redundancy in the transportation system is a critical 

issue for both public agencies and private shippers. 

6 The State freight planning process has encouraged State DOTs to think 

more deeply about network performance. 

7 State DOTs are studying agricultural-specific freight via corridor studies. 
22 Stakeholder Engagement The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Stakeholder Input 

provided by:

The Agricultural Transportation 

Working Group (ATWG): which is 

comprised of a wide variety of food and 

agriculture industry groups representing 

agricultural shippers and receivers;

Six State Departments of 

Transportation (State DOTs): California 

DOT (Caltrans), Iowa DOT (Iowa DOT), 

Missouri DOT (MoDOT), North Carolina 

DOT (NCDOT), Texas DOT (TXDOT), and 

the Washington State DOT (WSDOT); 

The St. Louis Regional Freightway: a 

regional freight planning organization, 

part of the Bi-State Development 

Corporation of Missouri and Illinois; and 

The National Association of Counties 

(NACo). 

The project team also reviewed responses 

submitted to a Request for Information 

which posted to the Federal Register 

from December 2019 to February 2020 

soliciting feedback on the Nation’s freight 

infrastructure barriers, challenges, and 

opportunities, which was posted to inform 

the development of the U.S. Department of 

Transportation’s National Freight Strategic 

Plan (U.S. DOT, 2020). 

Credits: (clockwise) Yelizaveta Tomashevska, Baloncici, and Olga Yastremska via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Stakeholder Engagement 23

1 The “first and last miles” 

of agricultural truck trips 

are the costliest part of the 

overall journey.

The roads that serve local farms generally have slower speed limits, higher levels of 

infrastructure deterioration, and less network connectivity. Stakeholders noted that the 

more productive and industrialized farming practices of the 21st century necessitate 

larger trucks to haul larger crop yields, and to keep costs manageable, but local roads and 

bridges are rarely re-built to accommodate these larger vehicles, creating inefficiencies in 

the highway network. Destinations are often located in urban areas or busy multimodal 

transfer points where congestion delays are common.

• Narrow or weight-restricted roads and bridges in rural areas often require trucks to 

use less direct routes, adding cost and reducing efficiency.

• Stakeholders describe areas where side rails on rural bridges were damaged 

or removed to accommodate wider vehicles, creating maintenance and safety 

concerns. 

• Both private shippers and public agencies identified traffic congestion around 

common freight destinations, such as ports, intermodals, and grain elevators, as a 

major issue making the last mile of a truck trip less efficient and more costly.

2 Continued investment in 

highway infrastructure 

is critical to improving 

performance.

Highway infrastructure requires continuous maintenance and reinvestment. Transportation 

agencies must balance a wide range of priorities and needs of diverse users. Freight users 

have different needs and use patterns than passenger vehicles. Some stakeholders believe 

that freight projects have not always been appropriately prioritized.

• Stakeholders emphasize that increased overall investment is important to 

improving future performance.

• Until recently there was not a dedicated source of funding for freight highway 

infrastructure needs at the Federal level and few dedicated sources at the State 

and local levels.

• Local governments are particularly stressed in balancing highway infrastructure 

needs and may not have access to Federal funding.

• There is a perception among some stakeholders that the seasonal nature of 

agriculture results in a structural disadvantage for how roadway projects are 

prioritized—while certain roads and bridges are critical to serving adjacent farms 

during harvest, infrastructure is typically prioritized based on total annual traffic.
24 Stakeholder Engagement The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

3 Decentralized local 

decision-making is a barrier 

for industry stakeholders 

to communicate challenges 

and needs.

There are thousands of county, municipal, township, and other local governments in the 

United States, each of which is structured to serve its local context. The agriculture industry 

often tries to communicate infrastructure challenges and priorities to decision-makers. 

However, industry stakeholders often find it difficult to identify the right people at the right 

time.

• Most States delegate local road building and maintenance responsibilities to

counties, municipalities, or other local jurisdictions, each of which prioritizes and

funds infrastructure differently.

• Agriculture industry stakeholders tend to focus communications at the National

and State levels where policy and regulatory decisions are made, but they find

it more challenging to engage at the local level where infrastructure investment

decisions, particularly for rural highways, are often made.

• A mismatch between long-range transportation planning and investment timelines

and shorter-range agriculture industry business cycles has made industry

participation challenging.

4 Data gaps for rural roads 

limit transportation 

agencies’ ability to 

understand how products 

move from farm to 

market.

Transportation agencies rely on performance data to help identify and prioritize 

investments, but stakeholders indicate that limited data about freight traffic patterns is a 

barrier.

• The Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) forms the basis for most freight planning,

but because the FAF data is summarized at a regional scale, it provides limited

information about agriculture movements within a State or metropolitan area.

• Private data sources are available for more detailed agricultural commodity

flows but not below the county level. These data do not show how products move

from farms to elevators, intermodal connections with railroads or waterways, or

processing locations.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Stakeholder Engagement 25

5 Building resiliency 

and redundancy in the 

transportation system is 

a critical issue for both 

public agencies and 

private shippers.

State DOTs described building resiliency and redundancy into the transportation system as 

a critical function of their freight planning responsibilities. While the agencies interviewed 

noted they have been thinking about these concepts for several years, they noted that 

recent supply chain disruptions such as the widespread flooding throughout the upper 

Midwest in 2019 and the COVID-19 global pandemic highlighted the urgency of building 

additional resiliency into highway networks.

• Some States are building spatial analysis tools that integrate travel patterns and

vulnerability indices to predict where future infrastructure disruptions are most

likely to occur, and ensure alternate routes are available.

• Public agencies are developing analysis and funding strategies to balance

spending on high-traffic areas with the need for investment in redundant routes.

6 The State freight planning 

process has encouraged 

State DOTs to think more 

deeply about network 

performance.

Since 2012, Federal law has encouraged State DOTs to develop and maintain a State 

Freight Plan which analyzes and articulates infrastructure strategies to optimize freight 

movement in their States, leading to increased attention on network performance.

• Transportation agencies are investing in freight analysis techniques (i.e., spatial

analysis, project prioritization) in order to improve future freight planning and

project decision making.

• Several States with strong agricultural economies are working on agriculture

industry-specific freight studies to better understand and support the industry’s

transportation needs.
26 Stakeholder Engagement The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

7 State DOTs are studying 

agricultural-specific freight 

via corridor studies.

At the statewide level, nearly all State DOTs study freight broadly, rather than focusing 

on specific industries or products. However, several State DOTs described undertaking 

corridor-level analyses to better understand the issues of freight in the agriculture industry 

specifically. These studies are intended to help identify the most pressing agricultural 

freight challenges in targeted areas.

• States use different methods to identify and define “agricultural corridors.” The 

scale and complexity of the analyses varies from State to State to serve individual 

needs (i.e., some States define corridors several miles long, while others are over 

100 miles).

• Corridor studies identify specific freight needs of the agriculture industry being 

served on that route; for instance, large refrigerated trucks carrying perishable 

goods have different infrastructure design needs than trucks carrying livestock or 

bulk grain

Credit: jakobradlgruber via 123rf.com
SECTION 4

Agricultural Freight 

Flows and Performance
28 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance

This section describes where U.S. agriculture 

is produced, how and where U.S. agricultural 

commodities move across U.S. highways, 

and the performance of those highways. 

The section identifies High-Volume Domestic 

Agriculture Highways (HDAH) that are the 

most important for moving the largest 

volumes of agricultural freight produced in 

the contiguous United States during 2018. 

Seventeen analysis corridors within the 

HDAH are also examined in greater detail 

to help illustrate how specific agricultural 

commodities move through the HDAH, 

and the congestion, reliability, and safety 

performance characteristics of these 

corridors.

Figure 9 shows a map of HDAH, which the 

project team developed based on 2018 

agricultural commodity flow data from 

the IHS Markit Transearch database. The 

methodology used to identify HDAH is 

described later in this section (p.36) and in 

Appendix C.

Figure 9: High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways (HDAH)

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data 
Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 29

How Agriculture Moves

From the sites of production, agricultural 

products travel to destinations such 

as processing centers, grain elevators, 

multimodal connections, and ports of export. 

Many of these trips are multimodal trips, 

including truck, as well as rail or barge 

components. Figure 10 shows a conceptual 

map of how agricultural products move 

throughout the country, including imports and 

exports, via all transportation modes. This 

map gives an overall view of the direction of 

commodity flows across the transportation 

system. Figure 11 shows freight flows by 

mode for all U.S. freight (not only agriculture), 

illustrating the interconnectedness of 

highway, rail, and waterway modes. 

This report focuses on the highway mode, 

but the multimodal context of agricultural 

commodity flows is also important to 

demonstrating the full picture of how 

transportation factors into the economic 

competitiveness of the U.S. agriculture 

industry. For additional detail on the 

importance of inland waterways, see The 

Importance of Inland Waterways to U.S. 

Agriculture (USDA, 2019).

Highway freight travel is a mix of short and 

long-distance trips as described in the 

National Freight Strategic Plan (U.S. DOT, 

2020).

Approximately 50% of large freight trucks 

(trucks with a gross vehicle weight of over 

10,000 pounds) operate within 50 miles 

of their origination and account for about 

30% of truck vehicle miles traveled (VMT).5

By contrast, only 10% of large freight trucks 

operate more than 200 miles away from their 

origin, but these large trucks account for 

more than 30% of overall truck VMT. Longdistance truck travel also accounts for nearly 

all freight ton-miles and a large share of truck 

VMT.

5 FHWA Planning Glossary Definition –“The number 

of miles traveled nationally by vehicles for a period of 1 

year. VMT is either calculated using 2 odometer readings 

or, for vehicles with less than 2 odometer readings, 

imputed using a regression estimate.” VMT measures 

the amount of travel for all vehicles in a geographic 

region for a given period of time, measuring by the sum 

of the number of miles traveled by each vehicle. https://

www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/glossary/glossary_listing.

cfm?sort=definition&TitleStart=V

Figure 10: Conceptual Map of Agricultural Trade Flows

Source: National Freight Strategic Plan (U.S. DOT, 2020)

Figure 11: United States Multimodal Freight Flows

Source: National Freight Strategic Plan (U.S. DOT, 2020)
30 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

In order to identify HDAH and describe freight flows of domestic agriculture production and highway performance, the project team looked at 

a number of characteristics. They include sites and levels of domestic agriculture production, agricultural commodity flows, highway functional 

classification, pavement and bridge condition, truck-involved fatal crashes, congestion, and truck travel time reliability (Table 2). Additional details 

about the data sources and methods used to describe domestic agricultural freight flows and performance are available in Appendix C.

Data Data Source 

(Provider, Year) Access Level Description

Agricultural production 

locations and values for 

select commodities

2017 Census of 

Agriculture (USDA, 2019) Public

The Census of Agriculture is a complete count of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate 

them, for any plot of land growing fruit, vegetables, or food animals worth more than $1,000 in sales. 

The Census is taken once every 5 years.

Domestic agricultural 

commodity highway 

flows

Transearch Database

(IHS Markit, 2018) Commercial

Transearch data predicts U.S. freight flows over 20 years by origin, destination, commodity, and 

transportation mode. Based on county-to-county level data, it includes volumes routed along 

individual trade lanes or corridors; the tonnage, value, and units of shipments; and mode share. This 

dataset is similar to the U.S. Census Commodity Flow Survey and FHWA Freight Analysis Framework, 

but provides greater spatial and commodity-level resolution. 2018 data is used for this report.

Highway functional 

classification, condition, 

and traffic volumes

Highway Performance 

Monitoring System

(HPMS) (FHWA, 2017-

2018)

Public

The HPMS is a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) national-level highway information system 

that includes data on the extent, condition, performance, use, and operating characteristics of the 

Nation’s highways. State Departments of Transportation (State DOTs) submit data annually, which 

includes functional classification, pavement condition, and annual average daily traffic (AADT). 

Bridge condition

National Bridge 

Inventory (NBI) (FHWA, 

2019)

Public

The NBI contains bridge data submitted annually to FHWA by State DOTs, Federal agencies, and Tribal 

governments in accordance with National Bridge Inspection Standards. It includes information on the 

number, length, and condition of bridges, along with other infrastructure characteristics.

Truck-involved fatal 

crashes

Fatality Analysis 

Reporting System (FARS)

(National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration 

(NHTSA), 2014-2018)

Public

FARS provides annual data on all fatal injuries suffered in motor vehicle traffic crashes, including 

truck-involved fatalities. Records include details such as the number of passengers, vehicle type, and 

driving conditions.

Congestion: Travel Time 

Index (TTI) and Truck 

Travel Time Reliability 

Index (TTTR) 

National Performance 

Management Research 

Data Set (NPMRDS)

(FHWA, 2018)

Governmentonly (Logins 

available for 

Federal, State, 

and local)

The NPMRDS is a national data set of average travel times on the National Highway System for use in 

performance measurement and management activities. 

TTI is the ratio of the travel time during the peak period to the time required to make the same trip at 

free-flow speeds. TTI is a measure of congestion.

TTTR is defined by dividing the 95th percentile time (longer travel times) by the 50th percentile 

time (normal time travel times) for each segment across various times of day. TTTR measures how 

consistent truck travel times are over different time periods.

Table 2: Data Sources for Defining and Describing the HDAH

Data Sources
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 31

High-Volume Domestic 

Agriculture Highways 

Focus Commodities

Agricultural products are grown and raised 

all over the United States, from largescale farming operations to small family 

or community farms. Characteristics of 

the land and climate influence where 

specific commodities are produced in larger 

quantities, and from where they travel to be 

processed, exported, or consumed.

The analysis in this report is focused on 

six categories of agricultural commodities. 

These commodities were selected as a 

representative sample of overall agricultural 

production and commodity flows in the 

United States. The six major categories of 

commodities used in this analysis are: 

● grains, 

● fruits and vegetables,

● milk, 

● meat,

6

● livestock, and 

● poultry. 

The specific commodities included in each 

category, and the top 10 producing States 

for each category, are shown in Table 3. 

Appendix D includes a more detailed table 

of the total value of these commodities 

produced in each State.

6 While processed meat is not included in the 2017 

Census of Agriculture given that it is not a raw good, it is 

included in the flow analysis.

Table 3: Focus Commodities and Top 10 Producing States for Each Commodity Group 

Group Census of Agriculture 

Variable

Commmodity Name (Standard 

Transportation Commodity Code (STCC))

Top 10 Producing 

States

Grains

Corn, Grain - Acres Harvested Corn (01132)

IA, IL, KS, MN, ND, 

NE, SD, IN, MO, OH Soybeans - Acres Harvested Soybeans (01144)

Wheat - Acres Harvested Wheat (01137)

Perishables 

- Fruits and

Vegetables

Apples - Acres Bearing Apples (01221)

CA, FL, WA, ID, OR, 

MI, NY, WI, ME, ND

Strawberries - Acres Bearing Strawberries (01293)

Oranges - Acres Bearing Oranges (01214)

Melons, Watermelon - Acres 

Harvested Watermelons (01392)

Lettuce - Acres Harvested Lettuce (01335)

Dry Onions - Acres Harvested Dry Onions (01318)

Potatoes - Acres Harvested Potatoes other than sweet (01195)

Perishables - 

Milk & Dairy 

Products

Heads of Dairy Cows

Dairy farm products (0142) CA, WI, NY, ID, PA, 

TX, MI, MN, NY, 

WA, OH

Processed whole milk, skim, cream, or 

fluid products (2026)

Perishables 

- Meat

N/A - Not in Census of 

Agriculture

Meat, fresh or chilled (2011)

N/A – Not in Census 

of Agriculture

Meat, fresh-frozen (2012)

Dressed Poultry, fresh or chilled (2015)

Dressed Poultry, fresh-frozen (2016)

Livestock

Cattle, (Excludes Cows) –

Inventory

Livestock (0141) IA, TX, NE, KS, MN, 

OK, MO, CA, SD, SC

Cattle, Cows - Inventory

Cattle, Cows, Beef - Inventory

Cattle, Includes Calves - 

Inventory

Cattle, On Feed - Inventory

Hogs - Inventory

Poultry Chickens, Broilers - Inventory Live poultry (0151) GA, AL, AR, NC, MS, 

TX, MD, MO, SC, DE

Note: Appendix D includes a summary table with total values for all commodities by State.

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2017 Census of Agriculture
32 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Figure 12 shows the county-level production 

areas for these commodities, and highlights 

the top 10 agriculture-producing States 

for all agricultural commodities, based on 

2017 Census of Agriculture data. As shown 

on the map, agricultural commodities are 

produced all over the United States. However, 

there are distinct areas where production 

is concentrated, which helps inform where 

some of the key roads are located that move 

agricultural freight. 

The HDAH align well with where agricultural 

commodities are produced. These highways 

carry the top 80% of the tonnage or market 

value of the focus commodities produced 

in the United States, and represent 

approximately 17% of the lane mileage of 

the network of highways modeled in the 

Transearch database. Figure 13 shows the 

HDAH overlaid with all sites of production and 

gives a broad picture of where commodities 

are produced relative to where the highest 

domestic agricultural freight volumes 

occurred in 2018.

Figure 12: Map 

of County-Level 

Production 

of Selected 

Commodities 

and Top 10 

Agriculture 

Producing States 

in 2017

Source: Volpe 

Center analysis 

of 2017 Census 

of Agriculture

Figure 13: Map 

of the HDAH 

Overlaid with 

County-Level 

Production 

of Selected 

Commodities

Source: Volpe 

Center analysis 

of 2017 Census 

of Agriculture 

and 2018 

IHS Markit 

Transearch data

1 dot = 1,000 Acres of Fruits & Vegetables Harvested

1 dot = 20,000 Acres of Grain Harvested

1 dot = 3,000 Heads of Dairy Cows

1 dot = 75,000 Heads of Livestock

1 dot = 400,000 Heads of Poultry

 High-Volume Domestic Agricultural Highways

Legend
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 33

Figures 14-18 show the county-level production of the focus commodity groups overlaid with the tonnage of commodity flows for that 

commodity group on the HDAH. These maps provide a high-level picture of where agricultural goods are produced in the United States relative 

to how they move over the HDAH.

Please note that while these maps may give the impression of long distance, coast-to-coast travel, many of these commodities travel much 

shorter distances along the HDAH to destinations such as processing centers or intermodal transfer locations. For a more in-depth analysis of 

how agricultural commodities move across the HDAH, see the corridor analysis section.

Figure 14: Dot Density Map of Grain Production in 2017, Overlaid With Volume Moved on the HDAH

Grain production 

is most heavily 

concentrated in 

the Midwest, with 

additional clusters 

in the MidAtlantic, Pacific 

Northwest, and 

South along the 

Mississippi River.

1 dot = 20,000 Acres of 

 Grain Harvested

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 

2017 Census of Agriculture and 

2018 IHS Markit Transearch data
34 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Figure 15: Dot Density Map of Selected Fruits and Vegetables Production in 2017, Overlaid With Volume 

Moved on the HDAH

Fruit and 

Vegetables 

included in 

the focus 

commodities 

are produced in 

major clusters in 

Florida, California, 

Washington, and 

Idaho.

1 dot = 1,000 Acres of Fruits & 

 Vegetables Harvested

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 

2017 Census of Agriculture and 

2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 16: Dot Density Map of Dairy Cows in 2017, Overlaid With Volume of Milk and Dairy Products Moved 

on the HDAH

Milk is produced 

across the 

country, with 

notable clusters 

of dairy cows 

in California, 

Wisconsin, Idaho, 

near the Texas/

New Mexico 

border, and the 

Northeast.

1 dot = 3,000 Heads of 

 Dairy Cows

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 

2017 Census of Agriculture and 

2018 IHS Markit Transearch data 
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 35

Figure 17: Dot Density Map of Livestock in 2017, Overlaid With Volume of Livestock Moved on the HDAH

Livestock are 

produced across 

the country, with 

clusters in the 

Midwest, West 

Texas, North 

Carolina, and 

California.

1 dot = 75,000 Heads of 

 Livestock

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 

2017 Census of Agriculture and 

2018 IHS Markit Transearch data 

Figure 18: Dot Density Map of Poultry in 2017, Overlaid With Volume of Poultry Moved on the HDAH

Poultry 

production 

is notably 

concentrated 

across the South 

and the Delmarva 

Peninsula in the 

Mid-Atlantic.

1 dot = 400,000 Heads of 

 Poultry

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 

2017 Census of Agriculture and 

2018 IHS Markit Transearch data 
36 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Identifying High-Volume Domestic 

Agriculture Highways

Identifying highways with large volumes of

domestic agriculture moves is useful for

determining the most important highways for

investment to support the U.S. agriculture

industry. The HDAH was developed using

domestic agricultural commodity flow data

from the IHS Markit Transearch database,

as opposed to relying solely on functional 

classification or overall truck traffic volume. 

This “bottom-up” approach identifies a subset 

of highways that carry 80% of domestic 

(non-import) agricultural commodity flows as 

measured by volume (tonnage or truck units) 

and market value (dollars).

The HDAH were identified by narrowing the 

highway network until 80% of flows remained 

for each selected commodity, as measured 

in tonnage or market value. This was done in 

two stages, first for Interstates and then for 

non-Interstates. This results in a narrowing of 

commodity flow data to 17% of the network

covered by the Transearch database, which

carries 80% of the commodity flows.

The HDAH consist of just over 49,000

highway miles of both Interstates and noninterstates. In order to understand the

characteristics of the HDAH, it is important to

understand the road classification system. In

the United States, all roads are categorized

into groups in a hierarchical functional

classification system with three major

categories of roads: local roads, collectors,

and arterials (see Figure 19). In this report,

the term “highways” refers to all roads except

for local roads and rural minor collectors

(see. p.2).

Arterial roads are the largest, highest-traffic

volume roads in the highway network,

and therefore carry the highest volume of

agriculture freight and comprise the majority

of the HDAH. Over 98% of the mileage of the

HDAH is major arterials, including more than

88% on the National Highway System (NHS),

and almost 50% on the Interstate System,

as shown in Figures 20-22. These highway

networks, and other commonly defined U.S.

road networks, are described in Table 4 for

context. The remaining 1.7% of mileage is

collectors. Given that the HDAH are the roads

that carry the largest volume of agricultural

freight, they do not include any local roads.

Figure 19: Functional Class System

Local Roads: These roads account for the largest percentage of all roadways. They provide direct 

access to destinations in a local area and are not intended for long-distance travel or through traffic.

Collectors: These roads gather traffic from local roads and funnel them into the arterial network. 

Arterials: These roads carry the highest volumes of traffic and span long distances across the 

country. The highest classification of arterials is the Interstate system.

Source: Status of the Nation’s Highways, Bridges, and Transit, Conditions & Performance, 23rd Edition 

(FHWA, 2019)
Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 37

Figure 20: Map of HDAH with Segments On and Off the National Highway System

Figures 20, 21, and 22 Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 HPMS data

Figure 21: HDAH Mileage by Functional Class 

1.7%

98.3%

Collectors Arterials (all)

Figure 22: Percentage of HDAH Mileage On 

and Off the Interstate System 

50.4% 49.6%

Interstate Non-Interstate

The Importance of Local and Collector 

Roads

Agricultural freight trips typically start with a

truck trip from a farm via local roads. From

these local roads, products move to larger

road networks, or transfer to other modes

for longer distance travel. At the end of their

journey, many agricultural products return to

local roads as they reach a processing center,

port, storage, or other final destination. The

beginning and ending legs of these trips are

The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

 On the NHS (43,288 miles = 88%)

 Off the NHS (5,789 miles = 12%)

referred to as the “first mile/last mile” of 

the truck journey and are a critical part of 

agricultural freight journeys. 

Although local and collector roads are critical 

parts of the overall agriculture supply chain, 

data about their condition or performance, 

such as congestion or reliability, are often 

lacking. Stakeholders provide anecdotes 

indicating these roads tend to be in worse 

overall condition than arterials, and that in 

rural areas, bridge closures and outdated 

design standards contribute to longer and 

less reliable shipping routes. However, 

because data for local roads is not available, 

and because of the national scope of this 

report, the contribution of local roads to 

the agricultural freight supply chain is not 

analyzed in this chapter.
38 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

System Description Highway 

Miles

Percent Share of 

Total Highway 

Miles

Federal-Aid Highways

Federal-Aid Highways are defined in 23 USC 101(a)(6) as “a public highway eligible for 

assistance under this chapter other than a highway classified as a local road or rural minor 

collector.” These are the roads that are eligible for most Federal-Aid Highway Program 

funding.

1,016,963 24.3%

National Highway 

System (NHS)

The NHS consists of roads important to the Nation’s economy, defense, and mobility. 

It includes all Interstates, principal arterials, and other highways which serve military 

installations, major population centers, international border crossings, ports, airports, public 

transportation facilities, other intermodal transportation facilities, and other major travel 

destinations.

226,767 5.4%

National Network (NN)

A system of roadways officially designated to accommodate commercial freight-hauling 

vehicles authorized by the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 and 23 CFR 658. The 

National Network overlaps significantly, but not entirely, with the NHS. This network supports 

interstate commerce by regulating the size of trucks, while the NHS supports interstate 

commerce by focusing federal investments. State DOTs may petition FHWA to add nonInterstate highways in their State.*

~200,000 ~4.7%

National Highway 

Freight Network (NHFN)

A U.S. network of highways established by FHWA to strategically direct Federal resources for 

improving freight performance. The network includes the Primary Highway Freight System 

(PHFS), identified as the most critical highway portions of the U.S. freight transportation 

system by FHWA. About 90% of these roads are on the Interstate system. The NHFN also 

includes other Interstate portions not on the PHFS, as well as critical rural and urban freight 

corridors that are designated by the States.

51,029 1.2%

High-Volume Domestic 

Agriculture Highways 

(HDAH)

Highway infrastructure that carry the largest volume of domestically-produced agricultural 

freight, identified by analysis of agricultural commodity flow data. The majority of the HDAH 

(88%) is on the NHS. The remainder consists of other principal arterials and collectors. See 

Appendix C for more details.

49,077 1.2%

Interstate Highway 

System

This consists of routes which are of the highest importance to the United States, connecting 

principal metropolitan areas, serving national defense, and connecting to international border 

crossings. All Interstate routes are included in the NHS.

47,944 1.1%

Table 4: Highway Systems and Network Definitions

* Note: Several States have given exemptions to Federal truck size and weight limits for the transportation of agricultural commodities. See Compilation of

Existing Truck Size and Weight Laws (FHWA, 2015), Appendix A. https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/policy/rpt_congress/truck_sw_laws/app_a.htm

Source: Status of the Nation’s Highways, Bridges, and Transit, Conditions & Performance, 23rd Edition (FHWA, 2019); The National Network (FHWA, n.d.)
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 39

Figures 23-26 show the extent of Federal-aid Highways, the NHS, the NHFN, and the HDAH. 

Figure 23: Map of the Federal-Aid Highway Network

Source: HEPGIS (FHWA, n.d.)

Figure 24: Map of the National Highway System (NHS) 

Source: HEPGIS (FHWA, n.d.)

Figure 25: Map of the National Highway Freight Network (NHFN) 

Source: HEPGIS (FHWA, n.d.)

Figure 26: Map of High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways (HDAH)

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data
40 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Advantages and Limitations of the HDAH

Identifying HDAH based on a small selection of roads (17%) that move the majority of the volume of domestically-produced agricultural goods 

(80%) allows for a more detailed analysis of the highways most important to moving agricultural freight. Narrowing the extensive highway 

network in this way helps to provide information that is more comprehensive to State DOTs and agriculture stakeholders about where the 

greatest volume and market value of agriculture products are moving on U.S. highways, and enables a detailed corridor analysis approach 

examining the performance of important parts of the HDAH. However, there are limitations to this approach as well.

1. The HDAH are based on a “snapshot”

in time of how domestic agricultural

freight moves across U.S. highways.

The Transearch data used to identify

the HDAH includes one year of

commodity flow data (2018), and only

reflects the highest volume domestic

movements of key agricultural

commodities. Agricultural freight

flows vary over time due to several

factors, including geographic shifts

in agricultural production and various

market forces throughout the supply

chain. The HDAH will likely shift over

time.

2. The HDAH do not include lower

functional class roads and bridges.

While the HDAH capture a smaller

selection of highways that move the

majority of domestic agricultural

freight, all highways are important to

agriculture. Lower functional class

roads that are not included in the

HDAH, including non-NHS arterials,

collectors, and local roads, carry

agricultural goods from farms to

processing centers, storage facilities,

and intermodal transfers. Agriculture

industry stakeholders often stress

the importance of maintaining local

roads and bridges to keep farm

products moving to markets efficiently.

Unfortunately, data about freight

movements and performance are

less likely to be available for lower

functional class roads, and because

they tend to carry lower volumes

overall, this analysis is unable to

meaningfully include them.

3. Data on modal transfers is not

included. The supply-chain for

many agricultural commodities is a

multimodal journey, which tends to

consist of a truck component as well

as a train or barge component before

reaching a final destination. Ideally, full

multimodal trips of these commodities

would be tracked and the volumes

being transferred at key intermodals

could be reported. However, data are

not consistently available to support

this analysis, as private supply chain

operators do not report information

about the commodities they carry in

a way that enables this analysis at a

national scale.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 41

4. The HDAH are based on a selection

of agricultural commodities, not

all agricultural commodities. The

selection of agricultural commodities

chosen for this analysis, and which the

HDAH are based on, captures many

of the most productive agriculture

producing regions in the United

States. However, this selection does

not capture all commodities, and

the resulting HDAH therefore do not

include all productive regions. For

example, the non-contiguous United

States (Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S.

territories) is not included in the HDAH,

as a result of both smaller agriculture

production and the greater reliance on

non-highway modes for transportation.

The commodity selection may over- or

under-represent certain regions in the

HDAH.

5. The commodities selected for

analysis are primarily un-processed.

Many agricultural commodities are

processed and transformed into other

products before being consumed or

exported. To gain a full understanding

of how highways support the

agriculture industry, commodities

would ideally be tracked through the

full supply chain. However, because of

the extraordinary breadth of products

produced with agriculture inputs, this

is not practical. Thus the analysis

focuses on un-processed grains, fruits

and vegetables, milk, and livestock,

and processed meat. The network

flows represent the volume flows from

the origin county of production to the

first transfer point, which range from

marine ports, to processing facilities,

to grain elevators.

6. The analysis does not include data on

intra-county commodity movements.

The Transearch data from which the

HDAH are developed is based on

county-to-county commodity flows.

Thus, movements of agricultural goods

within counties are not captured. This

may underrepresent commodities that

tend to be processed or transferred to

another mode close to where they are

produced.

7. Imported commodities are not

included. This analysis only includes

domestic agriculture production.

As such, it does not reflect the

movements of all agriculture

commodities, only those produced in

the United States. This may somewhat

limit the usefulness of the analysis

for understanding total agriculture

freight flows for commodities that are

imported into the United States in

significant volumes.

Despite these limitations, the HDAH and the analysis of commodity flows that they are based upon, provide a novel framework for 

understanding the importance of highways to the U.S. agriculture industry. The HDAH provide a shorthand for transportation agencies 

to quickly assess which highways are of greatest importance to U.S. agriculture producers’ economic competitiveness. A smaller, more 

manageable sized set of highways better lends itself to more detailed analyses of corridor performance and enables agencies to focus on 

areas of particular importance for agricultural freight with potential performance challenges (see corridor profiles).
42 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Commodity Flows on HDAH

Trucks traveling on HDAH move approximately 

805 million tons of these selected 

commodities worth over $428 billion 

annually. Table 5 shows the States that 

move the highest tonnage of the selected 

commodities on the HDAH by commodity 

group. Generally, the top production States 

align closely with the States with the largest 

commodity flows. However, there are States 

that are not top-10 producers, but still have 

significant flows of the selected commodities. 

These States tend to include important 

highway corridors for long distance shipping, 

be adjacent to high-production States, or 

contain processing centers, warehouses, or 

intermodal transfer locations that contribute 

to heavy flows of specific commodities. Some 

States are not large producers for certain 

agricultural commodities, but they may 

maintain important HDAH used to transport 

those commodities. Appendix D includes a 

table of the amount of tonnage moved on the 

HDAH by State.

Table 5: Total Tonnage and Market Value of Focus Commodity Groups Moved on HDAH

Group 2017 Census of Agriculture 

Variable

Commodity Name 

(Standard Transportation 

Commodity Code (STCC))

Volume Moved 

on the HDAH 

(in millions of 

tons)

Value Moved 

on the HDAH 

(in billions of 

dollars)

States with 

Highest Tonnage 

Commodity 

Flows on HDAH

Grains

Corn, Grain - Acres Harvested Corn (01132)

560.7 $83.9

IA, IL, MN, NE, 

IN, MO, SD, WI, 

KS, OH

Soybeans - Acres Harvested Soybeans (01144)

Wheat - Acres Harvested Wheat (01137)

Perishables 

- Fruits and 

Vegetables

Apples - Acres Bearing Apples (01221)

35.9 $29.1

CA, ID, WA, OR, 

IL, IN, UT, WI, 

WY, PA

Strawberries - Acres Bearing Strawberries (01293)

Oranges - Acres Bearing Oranges (01214)

Melons, Watermelon - Acres 

Harvested Watermelons (01392)

Lettuce - Acres Harvested Lettuce (01335)

Dry Onions - Acres Harvested Dry Onions (01318)

Potatoes - Acres Harvested Potatoes other than sweet 

(01195)

Perishables 

- Milk

& Dairy 

Products

Dairy Cows - Inventory

Dairy farm products (0142)

119.3 $58.1

CA, WI, PA, IL, 

OH, IN, NY, MN, 

IA, TX

Processed whole milk, 

skim, cream, or fluid 

products (2026)

Perishables 

- Meat N/A - Not in Ag Census

Meat, fresh or chilled 

(2011)

33.9 $123.4

IL, IA, IN, GA, 

MO, TN, TX, VA, 

PA, OH

Meat, fresh-frozen (2012)

Dressed Poultry, fresh or 

chilled (2015)

Dressed Poultry, freshfrozen (2016)

Livestock

Cattle, (Excl Cows) - Inventory

Livestock (0141) 36.5 $80.0

IA, NE, MN, IL, 

KS, TX, OK, SD, 

IN, MO

Cattle, Cows - Inventory

Cattle, Cows, Beef - Inventory

Cattle, Incl Calves - Inventory

Cattle, On Feed - Inventory

Hogs - Inventory

Poultry

Chickens, Broilers - Inventory 

Live poultry (0151) 19.3 $53.9

GA, AR, VA, NC, 

AL, MS, MD, SC, 

TN, KY Turkeys - Inventory

Table Note: Appendix D includes a summary table 

with total volume moved on the HDAH by State.

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit 

Transearch data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 43

Analysis Corridor Identification

Seventeen highway corridors were identified 

from the HDAH for further analysis of 

domestic agricultural commodity flows, and 

corridor performance in terms of pavement 

and bridge conditions, congestion, reliability, 

and safety (Figure 27). The corridor analysis 

approach supports the ability to examine 

the characteristics and performance of 

significant corridors on the HDAH in a 

detailed way that is not possible for all of the 

HDAH due to data and resource limitations. 

In many cases, agricultural freight does 

not regularly travel the full length of these 

corridors, but we can better understand 

the importance of a corridor by examining 

the variations in commodity flow and 

performance along the corridor.

The analysis corridors were chosen by 

assessing the movement of the agricultural 

commodities across the HDAH and based 

on availability of performance data from 

HPMS and NPMRDS. Corridors were initially 

identified based on the top 5% of routes that 

carry the largest share of each of the focus 

commodities (by tonnage, market value, or 

truck units). Corridor endpoints were chosen 

using natural breaks in the commodity 

flow data and comparison with highway 

infrastructure and relevant intermodal and 

processing facilities. Additional corridors 

that fell just shy of the 5% threshold were 

added to ensure a geographic balance and 

incorporate insights from the stakeholder 

engagement element of the project. Appendix 

C includes a more detailed description of how 

the 17 corridors were identified.

Figure 27: Map of 17 Analysis Corridors

Source: Volpe Center analysis

The 17 analysis corridors are:

1. CA/OR Border to SR-99/I-5 Interchange

2. Jackson, MS to Charlotte, NC

3. Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL

4. Davenport, IA to Memphis, TN

5. Toledo, OH to East Stroudsburg, PA

6. Flagstaff, AZ to Oklahoma City, OK

7. Florence, SC to Jacksonville, FL

8. KS/OK Border to Amarillo, TX

9. KY/TN Border to Ocala, FL

10. Mason City, IA to Des Moines, IA

11. Minot, ND to Chicago, IL

12. Pittsburgh, PA to Clinton, NJ

13. Salt Lake City, UT to Omaha, NE

14. Portland, OR to Salt Lake City, UT

15. Stockton, CA to Los Angeles, CA

16. Sioux Falls, SD to St. Louis, MO

17. Wilmington, DE to Norfolk, VA
44 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Analysis Corridor Profiles

This section highlights how domestic agricultural commodities move along each of the 17 analysis corridors. Each corridor narrative provides a 

high-level overview of the focus commodity agricultural commodity flows, infrastructure conditions, and performance of the route, and describes 

the importance of the corridor to domestic agricultural freight movement. Detailed statistics and charts for each corridor describing specific 

commodity flows, infrastructure conditions, and performance can be found in Appendix B.

Reference map highlighting the 

proximity of agricultural processing 

facilities, major metropolitan areas, 

navigable inland waterways, and other 

nearby HDAH routes

Key commodities table detailing of 

the number of truck units, tonnage, 

and market value of key domestic 

agricultural commodities that move 

on the corridor by truck

Summary of highways 

and State routes which 

together comprise the 

corridor

Highlights of notable 

features throughout 

the corridor in the form 

of maps, charts, or 

descriptive photos

The corridor profiles contains the following components: 
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 45

Corridor #1

California/Oregon Border to the Interstate-5/State 

Route-99 Interchange

An important route for transporting the fruit 

and vegetable crops and livestock produced 

in California’s fertile Central Valley, this 

corridor includes 565 miles of Interstate 

5 in California, stretching from the State’s 

northern border with Oregon to just south of 

Bakersfield (Figure 28). As opposed to the 

parallel State Route 99 (SR-99; see Corridor 

15), which provides more direct connections 

between the Valley’s farms and pasturelands 

with the local meat and vegetable processing 

centers, this corridor provides Interstate 

speed and quicker access to major 

international export centers such as ports 

in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, and, 

further to the north, Port of Portland, Oregon.

Commodity Movements

Overall, this corridor moves about 2.3 billion 

ton-miles of agricultural goods each year. 

Corn trucks move through this corridor in 

high quantities—about 283 million ton-miles 

annually, likely destined for processing 

facilities and grain elevators on the edges 

of the Bay Area before being exported or 

Figure 28: Context Map of Corridor #1

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries

Table 6: Corridor #1 Major Highways

State Route Miles

California I-5 565

Source: Volpe Center analysis
46 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Vegetables 2.83 million $2.97 billion 134 thousand

Fruit 1.65 million $1.42 billion 77 thousand

distributed domestically. South of this 

point on the corridor, in the Central Valley, 

fruits (approximately 337 million ton-miles), 

vegetables (451 million ton-miles), milk (968 

million ton-miles), and processed meats (245 

million ton-miles) move in high quantities 

in both directions of traffic. Much of these 

products are processed in the valley, though 

some are likely prepared for export via the 

coastal ports.

Corridor Conditions and Performance

Travel times and reliability along the corridor 

vary widely, with the heavy congestion near 

the Bay Area and Sacramento regions posing 

the largest mobility challenges overall. Fatal 

crashes involving trucks have also tended 

clustered around this area in the past several 

years, while crashes along the rest of the 

corridor occur less frequently. While more 

than 98% of pavement along the entirety of 

the corridor is generally rated to be in “fair” 

or “good” condition, a large cluster of bridges 

just south of Stockton on the route are rated 

to be in poor condition (Figure 29). As these 

bridges are located at the northern end of 

the Central Valley and near several important 

grain elevators and fruit and vegetable 

processing centers, infrastructure along 

this section of the corridor may pose future 

mobility issues.

Table 7: Corridor #1 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Vegetables

Fruit

Tonnage

2.83 M

1.65 M

Market 

Value

$2.97 B

$1.42 B

Truck 

Units

134 K

77 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 29: Ten Bridges Rated in ‘Poor’ Condition Exist in the 75 Miles South of Stockton, CA

This area contains two-thirds 

of all poorly rated bridges on 

the corridor.

Source: Volpe Center Analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch 

data and 2018 National Bridge Inventory data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 47

Corridor #2 Jackson, MS to Charlotte, NC

Figure 30: Context Map of Corridor #2

Source: Volpe Center analysis

This 603-mile long corridor stretches across 

the Southeastern region of the United 

States from Jackson, MS to Charlotte, NC. 

Interstates 20 (I-20), 59 (I-59) and 85 (I-85) 

provide an east-west route cutting directly 

through the region (Figure 30). This route 

sees more poultry carrying trucks than 95% 

of the rest of the Nation’s roadways, much 

of which is broiler chickens. The corridor 

also moves a significant amount of corn, 

livestock, dairy, and vegetables. A wide 

range of processing centers are located 

throughout the corridor, mostly in and 

around major metropolitan areas where the 

refined commodities then can be shipped 

via intermodal transportation facilities to 

destinations across the Nation.

Table 8: Corridor #2 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Alabama

I-20 78

I-59 106

I-459 30

Georgia

I-20 51

I-85 84

I-285 23

Mississippi

I-20 84

I-59 23

North Carolina I-85 17

South Carolina

I-85 98

I-520 9

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
48 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Poultry 4.97 million $13.83 billion 322 thousand

Commodity Movements

Large clusters of slaughterhouses and meat 

processing facilities exist in the Atlanta, GA, 

region, to which most poultry, cattle, and hog 

are destined. Annually, more than 400 million 

ton-miles of poultry and 553 million tonmiles of meat also move westward through 

western Alabama and eastern Mississippi, 

likely moving these products from local farms 

to processing facilities in the Jackson, MS 

metropolitan area. High volumes of dairy 

move through the corridor—about 220 million 

ton-miles each year—likely destined for 

processing and distribution centers in and 

around Atlanta. Grains also move at high 

volumes on this corridor, most often moving 

from farms in the Carolinas to facilities in the 

Atlanta metropolitan area for processing and 

distribution. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

More than 80% of mileage along the route 

moves traffic at consistent travel times. 

The Atlanta, GA, metropolitan region and 

Greenville/Spartanburg, SC metropolitan 

areas see regular congestion, however, 

and are far less reliable than the rest of 

the corridor (Figure 31). The route also 

sees significantly more traffic than many of 

the other analysis corridors. There are an 

average of 26.8 fatalities from truck-related 

crashes on this route each year. This is the 

equivalent of 0.211 fatalities per 100 million 

vehicle miles traveled (all traffic)—higher than 

the 2018 national average (0.159). 99.8% 

of the pavement and 98.5% of the bridges 

that make up the corridor are rated to be in 

“good” or “fair” quality; just 5 bridges out of 

339 are rated in poor condition, all of which 

are located in North and South Carolina 

between Spartanburg and Charlotte.

Table 9: Corridor #2 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Poultry

Tonnage

4.97 M

Market 

Value

$13.83 B

Truck 

Units

322 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 31: Share of Corridor #2 with Reliable Truck Travel Times: Atlanta Metro Compared to the 

Rest of the Corridor

Reliable (TTTR < 1.5) Unreliable (TTTR >= 1.5) No Data Available

Rest of 

Corridor

Atlanta 

Metropolitan 

Area

Reliability through the 

Atlanta metropolitan 

region (mile 300-

450) is significantly

worse than on the

rest of the corridor.

Reliable (TTTR < 1.5) Unreliable (TTTR >= 1.5) No Data Available

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 NPMRDS data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 49

Corridor #3 Omaha, NE, to Chicago, IL

Figure 32: Context Map of Corridor #3

Source: Volpe Center analysis

This 458-mile long corridor is among the 

busiest east-west trucking routes in the 

HDAH, providing the agricultural shippers 

in the Midwest Interstate access to the 

western half of the country via I-80 (Figure 

32). While a large amount of bulk goods like 

soybeans and wheat are trucked regionally 

toward intermodal rail facilities or river barge, 

a significant portion of these commodities 

are shipped across the country via truck. 

Table 10: Corridor #3 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Illinois I-80 156

Iowa I-80 302

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Farms near this corridor also produce 

livestock, poultry, dairy, and vegetables, 

each of which travels via I-80 in large 

volumes. Approximately $31 billion worth of 

agricultural commodities travel through this 

corridor annually. 

Commodity Movements

This corridor sees more than 6 billion tonmiles of agricultural commodities trucked 

across it annually (Figure 33). More than twothirds of agricultural tonnage on the route 

moves westward, including large volumes of 

corn (1.7 billion ton-miles annually), dairy 

(681 million ton-miles), vegetables (552 

million ton-miles), processed meat (541 

million ton-miles), soybeans (445 million 

ton-miles), and livestock (about 148 million 

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
50 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Corn 44.80 million $4.44 billion 2.90 million

Dairy 5.65 million $2.64 billion 340 thousand

Meat 3.78 million $14.67 billion 164 thousand

Livestock 3.58 million $7.85 billion 232 thousand

Vegetables 1.63 million $1.32 billion 78 thousand

ton-miles). Agricultural traffic volumes greatly 

increase on the corridor around mile 300 

in Davenport, IL. Here, I-74 from the south 

and I-88 from north converge with the route 

and travel westward. In the eastbound 

direction, corn is trucked in especially high 

volumes (1.25 billion ton-miles annually). 

Dairy products, soybeans, and processed 

meats also move in significant volumes, likely 

headed for processing facilities in central 

Iowa or the Chicago metropolitan area. At 

least some of the grains grown in region 

likely travel through this corridor toward the 

Mississippi River, where high quantities of 

bulk grain travel by barge toward to Port of 

New Orleans for export. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

In terms of total vehicle volumes, this 

corridor sees much more daily traffic than 

other corridors studied in this report, and 

the number of truck-related fatal crashes are 

relatively high as well. About one-third of the 

route exists in urban areas. The two largest 

metropolitan areas, Des Moines, IA and 

Chicago, IL, see the most traffic on average; 

while this traffic congestion correlates to 

a large drop in travel time reliability in the 

Chicago region, the Des Moines region’s 

traffic remains mostly consistent and does 

not present significant travel time issues. 

Pavement throughout the entire corridor 

is rated quite high, with more than 99% of 

mileage rated to be in either “good” or “fair” 

condition. However, 14 bridges (or about 

6.5% of all bridges on the route) are rated 

as being in “poor” condition, and are fairly 

evenly distributed throughout the corridor.

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

Corridor #3 Other Corridors (Average)

Tons (in millions)

Vegetables

Milk and Dairy

Meat

Fruit

Poultry

Cattle and Hogs

Wheat

Soybeans

Corn

Figure 33: Corridor #3 Volumes by Commodity Compared to Average Analysis Corridor Volumes

Source: USDOT Volpe Center

Table 11: Corridor #3 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Corn

Dairy

Meat

Livestock

Vegetables

Tonnage

44.80 M

5.65 M

3.78 M

3.58 M

1.63 M

Market 

Value

$4.44 B

$2.64 B

$14.67 B

$7.85 B

$1.32 B

Truck 

Units

2.90 M

340 K

164 K

232 K

78 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 51

Corridor #4

Davenport, IA, to Memphis, TN

This 519-mile long corridor primarily moves 

bulk grain products, connecting regional 

farms with processing locations and the 

Midwest to the Mississippi River ports, where 

the grains continue moving southward via 

barge for export (Figure 34). The proximity to 

Midwestern grain farms, the Mississippi River 

system, and a vast network of highways make 

this route a key transportation element of the 

grain supply chain. An estimated $8.8 billion 

in corn and soybean product moves through 

this corridor on an annual basis.

Commodity Movements

This corridor has three distinct agricultural 

freight patterns, collectively carrying 

about 3.1 billion ton-miles of agricultural 

commodities annually. First, just less than 

900 million ton-miles of corn and about 

690 million ton-miles of soybeans produced 

to the north and west annually travel 

southbound via I-74 to Peoria, IL, where they 

are likely loaded onto river barges destined 

for international export at the Port of New 

Orleans. Second, the 125-mile stretch of 

I-57 between State Route 121 (SR-121) in 

the North and confluence with Interstate 24 

(I-24) in the south serves as a main trunk 

Figure 34: Context Map of Corridor #4

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries

Table 12: Corridor #4 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Arkansas

I-40 10

I-55 65

Illinois

IL-32 33

I-57 160

I-74 74

IL-121 52

I-155 32

Other 3

Missouri

I-55 66

I-57 22

Tennessee I-40 2

Source: Volpe Center analysis
52 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Corn 31.36 million $3.11 billion 2.03 million

Soybeans 16.78 million $5.77 billion 1.09 million

highway connecting several different common 

trucking routes. Here, meat (179 million tonmiles annually), vegetables (35 million tonmiles), and milk (173 million ton-miles), travel 

southward, likely moving toward Nashville, 

Chattanooga, or Atlanta, and in similar 

volumes northbound toward Chicago. Finally, 

south of the confluence of I-57 and I-55 in 

southeastern Missouri, about 690 annual 

ton-miles of soybeans move southbound 

toward river ports West Memphis, also 

destined for the Port on New Orleans. The 

farmlands surround the Mississippi River in 

Arkansas and Missouri are among the highest 

soybean producing regions in the Nation. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

A total of 27 bridges—approximately 15% of 

all bridges on the route—are rated in “poor” 

condition. Nearly half of these bridges fall 

on the section of I-74 in northern Illinois 

connecting Davenport and Peoria (Figure 

35). It is in this area that a large majority of 

soybeans and corn grains travel, posing a 

potential issue for the movement of those 

goods should the bridges not be addressed. 

The corridor sees many more fatal accidents 

involving trucks on the southern half of the 

corridor, likely because the northern half is 

more rural and comprised of less Interstate 

mileage. Overall, the corridor averages 0.25 

truck related fatalities per 100 million vehicle 

miles traveled (all traffic), about 50% more 

than the 2018 national average. Generally, 

travel times along the Interstate portions 

of the corridor are reliable, though several 

portions of SR-121 Decatur and Peoria, IL 

experience significant delays.

Table 13: Corridor #4 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Corn

Soybeans

Tonnage

31.36 M

16.78 M

Market 

Value

$3.11 B

$5.77 B

Truck 

Units

2.03 M

1.09 M

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 35: Twelve Poorly Rated Bridges Exist in a Less Than 100 Mile Span on Corridor #4

Source: Volpe Center analysis of National Bridge Inventory (FHWA, 2019)
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 53

Corridor #5 Toledo, OH to East Stroudsburg, PA

Figure 36: Context Map of Corridor #5

Source: Volpe Center analysis

This 471-mile long corridor stretches 

across Ohio and Pennsylvania (Figure 36). 

An important corridor for dairy products 

produced in eastern Ohio and throughout 

Pennsylvania, commodities on this corridor 

travel mostly in an eastward direction to the 

New Jersey/Pennsylvania border. The route 

connects important Midwestern hubs like 

Detroit and Cleveland with distribution and 

export centers on the East Coast like New 

York and Philadelphia. 

Commodity Movements

I-80 is a main thoroughfare for agricultural 

commodities travelling across the United 

States. Along the section of the Interstate 

making up this corridor, approximately 829 

million ton-miles of milk, 373 million tonmiles of meat, 337 million ton-miles of corn, 

and 321 million ton-miles of vegetables move 

from western Ohio to eastern Pennsylvania, 

likely destined for processing and distribution 

facilities located in the greater New York 

City metropolitan area. On the western edge 

Table 14: Corridor #5 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Ohio I-80 166

Pennsylvania I-80 305

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
54 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Dairy 8.68 million $4.61 billion 505 thousand

of the corridor in Ohio, between Toledo and 

Youngstown, additional commodities such as 

wheat, soy, fruits, and cattle move in lower 

volumes (between 20-50 million ton-miles 

each). Near Youngstown, volumes of these 

goods drop quickly, likely exiting the route 

onto Interstate 76 (I-76) and traveling toward 

Pittsburgh, PA (see Corridor #12). Corn and 

poultry volumes pick up near milepost 375 

on this route, likely traveling from farms in 

and around Williamstown and other parts of 

northern Pennsylvania and traveling toward 

the route via I-180. These increased volumes 

carry on to the end of the corridor at the New 

Jersey border. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

Trucks move at fairly consistent travel times 

along the corridor. However, travel reliability 

decreases considerably between route miles 

175 and 225, likely due to the influx of traffic 

from neighboring I-76, I-79, and other State 

highways in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. 

Infrastructure on the corridor is in overall 

good condition, with 99% of pavement and 

98% of bridges rated as either “good” or 

“fair.” About 8.5 traffic fatalities on this route 

involved a truck between 2014 and 2018 on 

the route, equivalent to about 0.181 fatalities 

per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (all 

traffic). 

Table 15: Corridor #5 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Dairy

Tonnage

8.68 M

Market 

Value

$4.61 B

Truck 

Units

505 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 37: Bulk Liquid Truck Loading Milk - Dairy Travels in Very High Volumes Across 

Pennsylvania, Which Has More Dairy Farms Than Every State Except Wisconsin

Credit: Ralph Fiskness via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 55

Corridor #6 Flagstaff, AZ to Oklahoma City, OK

Figure 38: Context Map of Corridor #6

Source: Volpe Center analysis

This corridor is made up of 861 miles of 

Interstate 40, stretching from Oklahoma 

City, OK, to Flagstaff, AZ, passing through 

Amarillo, TX (where it also connects to 

Corridor #8), and Albuquerque, NM (Figure 

38). Traffic from several different roads 

all begins to converge and aggregate onto 

this corridor near Oklahoma City to travel 

westward. Approaching Albuquerque, traffic 

begins to branch off into several different 

directions, with potential destinations 

including the Port of Los Angeles and Long 

Beach, the Port of Oakland, or Mexico—not 

all of this westward traffic will necessarily 

travel by truck, as some will switch to rail. 

This is an important east-west agricultural 

freight connecting the export facilities and 

production areas in the West with those in 

the Midwest and beyond. 

Commodity Movements

Large shifts in agricultural volumes and 

commodity types occurring in the Amarillo, 

TX, metro area are the defining feature of 

this corridor. Here, high volumes of milk 

enter the corridor, most of which continues 

Table 16: Corridor #6 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Arizona I-40 164

New Mexico

I-40 370

Other 3

Oklahoma I-40 147

Texas I-40 177

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
56 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Dairy 6.30 million $2.48 billion 394 thousand

Meat 2.82 million $10.69 billion 123 thousand

Livestock 1.06 million $2.33 billion 69 thousand

Fruit 0.39 million $0.46 billion 18 thousand

traveling eastbound via I-40. In total, the 

corridor carries about 1.97 billion tonmiles of dairy products each year, making 

up nearly half of all agricultural ton-miles 

on the corridor. Livestock and meat also 

travel in high volumes in this pattern, with 

approximately 33 million and 177 million 

ton-miles, respectively, moving toward 

Oklahoma City annually. Westbound traffic 

from Amarillo carries even higher volumes of 

meat—about 783 million ton-miles annually—

likely destined for consumption, processing, 

or export along the West Coast. Fruit (174 

ton-miles) and vegetable (682 million tonmiles) products travel eastward along the 

corridor in large quantities, likely originating 

in California and destined for distribution and 

consumption in the southern and eastern 

parts of the country. On the easternmost 

edge of the corridor in Oklahoma, corn and 

wheat bulk grains enter this corridor in large 

quantities, ultimately making up about half of 

the agricultural truck traffic by units around 

the Oklahoma City metropolitan region. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

At 0.33 fatalities per 100 million miles 

traveled (all vehicles), truck-related fatalities 

occur on this corridor at more than twice the 

rate of the national average. Travel times 

and reliability along the corridor are fairly 

consistent, with only a few small spikes in 

congestion in some of the urban areas along 

the corridor. Pavement along this the corridor 

is generally rated to be in “fair” or “good” 

condition, and the bridges are similarly 

mostly in either “fair” or “good” condition, 

although far more bridges are “fair” than 

“good.” Infrastructure along this corridor may 

not present mobility issues at the present, 

but the large number of “fair” bridges will 

need maintenance or rehabilitation in the 

future to ensure that they do not further 

degrade into “poor” condition and to ensure 

the efficient operation of this important 

agricultural freight corridor. 

Table 17: Corridor #6 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Dairy

Meat

Livestock

Fruit

Tonnage

6.30 M

2.82 M

1.06 M

0.39 M

Market 

Value

$2.48 B

$10.69 B

$2.33 B

$0.46 B

Truck 

Units

394 K

123 K

69 K

18 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 39: Large Herd of Angus Cross Beef Steers - Corridor #6 Carries an Especially High Volume 

of Live Cattle, Processed Meat, and Dairy Products

Credit: Tracy Fox via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 57

Corridor #7

Florence, SC to Jacksonville, FL

This corridor is made up of 290 miles of 

Interstate 95 (I-95), and serves as a main 

route to transport fresh fruits produced 

in Florida northward toward processing 

and distribution centers, and, in the other 

direction, to provide access to the Ports of 

Savannah and Jacksonville for commodities 

produced in the Carolinas (Figure 40).

Commodity Movements

Citrus and other fruits moving northbound 

from farms in Florida make up the vast 

majority of traffic along this corridor, with 

trucks moving about 215 million ton-miles 

each year. The products move in particularly 

high volumes near the Port of Jacksonville, 

likely destined for processing facilities in the 

region or for distribution centers that can 

move these perishables across the country 

for consumption. In lesser but still significant 

volumes, milk (140 million ton-miles) and 

meat products (180 million ton-miles) move 

southbound on the corridor in refrigerated 

trucks from production sites in the Carolinas, 

likely destined for either the Port of 

Figure 40: Context Map of Corridor #7

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries

Table 18: Corridor #7 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Florida I-95 18

Georgia I-95 112

South Carolina I-95 160

Source: Volpe Center analysis
58 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Meat 1.30 million 4.43 billion 57 thousand

Fruit 850 thousand 584 thousand 40 thousand

Savannah and the Port of Jacksonville to be 

exported or distribution across the country. 

Bulk grains (corn, wheat, and soybeans) 

produced further north on the eastern 

seaboard also move by truck southward via 

this corridor to the Port of Savannah, totaling 

about 51 million ton-miles. These are likely 

destined for international export or to local 

processing centers. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

Infrastructure conditions and travel times 

along this route are in comparatively good 

condition. One hundred percent of the 

pavement on the corridor is rated to be in 

either “good” or “fair” condition. Just one 

bridge out of 137, located near Jacksonville, 

is rated to be in ‘poor’ condition. Travel 

times along the corridor tend to remain 

consistent and reliable, with one exception 

near Savannah, GA, where increased levels 

of congestion create periodic delays. Truckrelated traffic fatalities occur at a rate 

of 0.118 every 100 million vehicle miles 

traveled (all traffic), about in-line with the 

national average.

Table 19: Corridor #7 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Meat

Fruit

Tonnage

1.30 M

850 K

Market 

Value

4.43 B

584 M

Truck 

Units

57 K

40 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 41: Semi-Trailer Full of Oranges - Citrus Fruits Move in High Volumes Along Corridor #7

Credit: Jim Vallee via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 59

Kansas/Oklahoma Border to Amarillo, TX

Corridor #8

This 171-mile long corridor travels along 

US-54, Interstate 287 (I-287), and Interstate 

87 (I-87) (Figure 42). The lands surrounding 

this corridor are densely settled with cattle 

ranches and farmland. Primarily, this corridor 

serves to connect the agricultural production 

in this region with Interstate speed and eastwest access of I-40 (see corridor #6), as well 

as meat processing plants near Amarillo.

Commodity Movements

Large volumes of milk (118million ton-miles), 

meat (76 million ton-miles), and livestock 

(164 million ton-miles) travel through this 

corridor each year. Bulk grains such as corn 

and wheat also travel in significant volumes 

on this corridor (375 million and 88 million 

ton-miles, respectively). The commodities 

primarily travel south toward Amarillo, TX, and 

much of this volume likely continues traveling 

eastward on Corridor #6. Some of these 

goods are also processed nearby, most often 

just north of the Amarillo metro area, where 

several grain elevators and slaughterhouses 

exist. Northbound agricultural commodities 

move in lower volumes, and primarily include 

livestock (78 million ton-miles) and dairy 

products (77 million ton-miles).

Figure 42: Context Map of Corridor #8

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Table 20: Corridor #8 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Oklahoma US-54 56

Texas

I-27 13

US-54 20

US-60 2

US-87 47

US-287 33

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
60 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Dairy 4.23 million $1.48 billion 270 thousand

Livestock 2.67 million $5.87 billion 173 thousand

Meat 1.81 million $7.09 billion 79 thousand

Wheat 1.07 million $0.18 billion 69 thousand

Corridor Conditions and Performance

The rate of truck-related fatalities on 

this corridor is more than three times 

the national average, with .588 fatalities 

occurring for every 100 million vehicle miles 

traveled (Figure 43). Overall, congestion is 

rare throughout the entirety of the route. 

The area with the largest congestion 

and reliability issues is in the Amarillo 

metropolitan area—this is also the area with 

the most through lanes on the corridor, and 

the pavement condition in the area is a mix 

of “fair” and “good.” There is one bridge in 

“poor” condition near Amarillo that could 

present a mobility challenge in the future, 

but the corridor overall is in reasonably good 

condition, with less than 1% of pavement in 

“poor” condition, which is concentrated near 

the Kansas/Oklahoma border.

Table 21: Corridor #8 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Dairy

Livestock

Meat

Wheat

Tonnage

4.23 M

2.67 M

1.81 M

1.07 M

Market 

Value

$1.48 B

$5.87 B

$7.09 B

$0.18 B

Truck 

Units

270 K

173 K

79 K

69 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 43: Average Annual Fatalities Involving a Truck per 100 Million Vehicle Miles Traveled on 

Corridor #8, 2014-2018

0.522

0.204

0.159

0.000

0.100

0.200

0.300

0.400

0.500

0.600

For Corridor #8 Average for all 17

analysis corridors

National Average

The average 

incidence of truckrelated fatalities 

per vehicle miles 

traveled on corridor 

#8 is more than 

3 times higher 

than the national 

average, and 

2.5 times higher 

than the analysis 

corridor average. 

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2014-2018 FARS data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 61

Corridor #9

Kentucky/Tennessee Border to Ocala, FL

This 682 mile corridor connects Midwestern 

and Florida crops with important distribution 

hubs via Interstate 24 (I-24) and Interstate 

75 (I-75) (Figure 44). The route connects with 

rail intermodal facilities in Nashville, TN, and 

Atlanta, GA, and the Tennessee River ports 

in Chattanooga, TN, which provide east-west 

rail and port access for broader distribution 

of the wide array of agricultural commodities 

traveling through the route.

Commodity Movements

Grains, perishables, and livestock all move 

in large volumes through this corridor. 

Corn (246 million ton-miles), livestock (23 

million ton-miles), poultry (100 million tonmiles), meat (412 million ton-miles), milk 

(337 million ton-miles), and vegetables 

(194 million ton-miles) from Kentucky and 

beyond move southward on the corridor 

toward Nashville. Here, a drop in southbound 

volumes on the corridor for these 

commodities suggests that these goods 

either begin moving east-west via Interstate 

40 (I-40), or switch to rail via Nashville’s 

CSX Intermodal Rail facility on Interstate-65 

(I-65). Still a significant portion of these 

commodities continue moving southward 

Figure 44: Context Map of Corridor #9

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Table 22: Corridor #9 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Florida I-75 142

Georgia

I-24 4

I-75 353

Tennessee

I-24 177

I-65 6

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
62 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Meat 5.62 million $19.29 billion 245 thousand

Poultry 3.45 million $9.60 billion 224 thousand

Fruit 1.63 million $1.23 billion 77 thousand

toward Atlanta and Macon, likely destined 

for the many processing and distribution 

facilities in those regions. Fruit moves in 

especially high volumes in a northbound 

direction on this corridor, totalling about 

371 million ton miles annually. Citrus fruit 

produced in high quantities in central 

Florida moves northward via I-75, joined 

by high volumes of watermelon around 

central Georgia. Poultry is also produced in 

especially high quantities in this region (193 

million ton miles annually), and consistently 

high volumes of the commodity travel both 

north and southbound between Chattanooga 

and Atlanta, connecting poultry farmers and 

the nearby slaughterhouses and processing 

facilities.

Corridor Conditions and Performance

Travel times on this corridor are highly 

variable, particularly in the 275 mile stretch 

connecting Nashville, Chattanooga, and 

Atlanta (Figure 45). Travel Time Index (TTI) 

values increase to 1.5 In Nashville and 

Atlanta in particular, meaning average 

travel times increase by up to 50% for large 

stretches of the route. An average of about 

19 fatal collisions involving trucks occur 

on this corridor annually, equal to about 

.203 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles 

traveled (all vehicles). More than 99% of both 

bridges and pavement mileage on the route 

are rated in “good” or “fair” condition. Three 

bridges are rated “poor” condition, all of 

which fall on I-24 through Tennessee—one in 

Nashville and two in Chattanooga.

Reliable (TTTR < 1.5) Unreliable (TTTR >= 1.5) No Data Available

Table 23: Corridor #9 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Meat

Poultry

Fruit

Tonnage

5.62 M

3.45 M

1.63 M

Market 

Value

$19.29 B

$9.60 B

$1.23 B

Truck 

Units

245 K

224 K

77 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 45: Share of Corridor #9 with Reliable Truck Travel Times: Nashville to Atlanta Compared 

to the Southern Half of the Corridor

Reliable (TTTR < 1.5) Unreliable (TTTR >= 1.5) No Data Available

Nashville 

Through 

Atlanta

South of 

Atlanta

The section 

of Corridor #9 

between Nashville 

and Atlanta is 

among the least 

reliable of the 17 

corridors analyzed.

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 NPMRDS data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 63

Corridor #10

Mason City, IA, to Des Moines, IA

Iowa is among the most agriculturally 

productive States in the Nation. This route, 

composed of 120 miles of Interstate 35 (I35), primarily provides access between farms 

in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota to 

local grain elevators, slaughterhouses, and 

other processing facilities (Figure 46). The 

route’s southern endpoint in Des Moines 

connects the region to Interstate-80 (I-80), 

a key east-west corridor, and allows goods 

produced in Iowa to be moved elsewhere in 

the Midwest for processing and consumption. 

A significant amount of the grains produced 

in the area likely move along I-35 to I-80, 

and are eventually loaded onto barges for 

transport along the Mississippi River and 

destined for international export.

Commodity Movements

Corn moves through the corridor in 

significantly higher quantities than any 

other commodity, making up two-thirds of 

all agricultural traffic with 766 million tonmiles moving through the route. Soybeans 

(129 million ton-miles annually), dairy (142 

Figure 46: Context Map of Corridor #10

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Table 24: Corridor #10 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Iowa

I-35 116

I-235 4

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
64 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Corn 15.38 million $1.53 billion 997 thousand

Livestock 1.28 million $2.82 billion 83 thousand

million ton-miles), and livestock, mostly pork 

(68 million ton-miles) also travel along this 

corridor in high quantities. While corn and 

soybeans tend to travel large quantities both 

northbound and southbound—likely destined 

for one of the several grain elevators located 

along the route—trucks carrying hogs tend 

to move southbound (48 million ton-miles), 

most likely destined for the slaughterhouses 

and meat processing facilities in and around 

Des Moines. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

The physical and operational conditions of 

the corridor are very good. Likely due to the 

rural nature of the corridor, travel times are 

very reliable and tend to be uncongested. 

Nearly all of the route’s pavement is rated 

to be in “good” condition (81.3%) or “fair” 

condition (18.4%) (Figure 47). Similarly, no 

bridges along the corridor are rated less than 

“fair.” On average, the corridor sees less than 

one fatal crash per year involving a truck. 

Its truck-related fatality rate of .08 deaths 

per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (all 

traffic) is the lowest of any of the 17 corridors 

analyzed, and half the rate of the 2018 

national average. 

Good Fair Poor Unknown

Pavement Condition

Corridor 

#15

All Other 

Corridors 

(Average)

Table 25: Corridor #10 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Corn

Livestock

Tonnage

15.38 M

1.28 M

Market 

Value

$1.53 B

$2.82 B

Truck 

Units

997 K

83 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 47: Pavement Condition Rating of Corridor #10 Compared to Average of All Other 

Analysis Corridors

Good Fair Poor Unknown

Corridor 

#10

All Other 

Analysis

Corridors 

(Average)

Pavement condition 

on Corridor #10 is in 

very good condition 

(inside pie chart), 

especially compared 

to the average of the 

other 16 analysis 

corridors (outside 

pie chart).

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 NPMRDS data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 65

Corridor #11 Minot, ND, to Chicago, IL

Figure 48: Context Map of Corridor #11

Source: Volpe Center analysis

This 895-mile long corridor connects 

producers in the upper plains and Midwest 

regions to the processing facilities and 

shipping routes that exist further south in 

the region (Figure 48). An important area 

for wheat, fruits, vegetables, and dairy in 

particular, each of which travels along the 

corridor at some of the highest rates in 

the country. Agricultural goods produced 

in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin 

generally travel southbound toward either the 

Mississippi River system or the intermodal 

facilities in the Chicago region for export, 

processing, and domestic consumption. 

Commodity Movements

Moving 5.5 billion ton-miles of agricultural 

goods each year, this corridor is among the 

busiest in the agricultural network. High 

Table 26: Corridor #11 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Illinois

I-39 17 

I-90 51

Others 16

Minnesota

I-94 234

I-694 23

Others 2

North Dakota

US-52 45

I-94 38

Others 4

Wisconsin

I-39 78

I-90 63

I-94 147

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
66 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Dairy 13.38 million $5.53 billion 829 thousand

Wheat 3.99 million $0.68 billion 258 thousand

Vegetables 2.49 million $1.66 billion 120 thousand

Fruit 0.68 million $0.43 billion 32 thousand

volumes of fruits (386 million ton-miles) and 

vegetables (657 million ton-miles) produced 

in Western States travel eastbound on 

Interstate 94 (I-94). North of I-94, through 

Minot, approximately 200 million-ton miles 

of soybeans produced throughout eastern 

North Dakota move northbound toward the 

grain elevators and processing locations 

in the State. In the other direction, wheat 

that is produced in the eastern Dakotas 

and western Minnesota moves southbound 

toward Minneapolis (354 million ton-miles), 

where most is likely loaded onto river barges 

to continue its journey southward. Wisconsin 

has more dairy farms than any State in the 

Nation, and is second only to California in 

production volume. Unsurprisingly, dairy 

travels in high quantities through the State 

(1.35 billion ton-miles), mostly southbound 

(963 million ton-miles) to processing 

facilities throughout Wisconsin and Illinois. 

Meat products are also produced in high 

volumes in Wisconsin (303 million ton-miles), 

and follow similar travel patterns as dairy. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

Travel times are fairly consistent throughout 

most of the corridor, though a nearly 100 

mile stretch of the Minneapolis-St. Paul 

metropolitan region sees a marked drop 

in truck travel time reliability. Additionally, 

travel through both Bismarck, ND, and the 

northern suburbs of Chicago see shorter 

segments of unreliable travel times for 

trucks. Thirteen bridges out of 286 (4.5%) 

are rated to be in “poor” condition, most of 

which are in Minneapolis-St. Paul and areas 

to the east along I-94 (Figure 

49). The sustained unreliability 

across such a long distance 

and clustering of bridges in 

poor condition in this important 

agricultural trade hub poses 

a potential concern for the 

movement of agricultural goods. 

Pavement condition is very good 

throughout the entire 899-mile 

route, with more than 99% rated 

in “good” or “fair” condition. The 

corridor is comparatively safe as 

well, seeing 0.09 truck-related 

fatalities per 100 million vehicle 

miles traveled in 2018 (all 

traffic)—about 45% lower than 

the national average.

Table 27: Corridor #11 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Dairy

Wheat

Vegetables

Fruit

Tonnage

13.38 M

3.99 M

2.49 M

0.68 M

Market 

Value

$5.53 B

$0.68 B

$1.66 B

$0.43 B

Truck 

Units

829 K

258 K

120 K

32 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 49: Poorly Rated Bridges in the Minneapolis region 

on Corridor #11, an Important Hub for Grains Processing

Source (Figure 49): Volpe Center 

analysis of National Bridge Inventory 

(FHWA, 2019)
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 67

Corridor #12 Pittsburgh, PA, to Clinton, NJ

Figure 50: Context Map of Corridor #12

Source: Volpe Center analysis

This 344-mile long corridor runs through 

the southern half of Pennsylvania via 

Interstate 76 (I-76) and Interstate 78 (I78), and is among the Nation’s most 

densely traveled corridors for milk products 

(Figure 50). Pennsylvania contains more 

dairy farms than any other State except 

Wisconsin, and is seventh in total milk 

production. The area south of I-78 and east 

of Harrisburg is particularly dense with 

dairy farms, and nearby processing centers 

in nearby Philadelphia and the New York 

City metropolitan area provide access to 

pasteurization facilities and cheese and 

yogurt production. 

Commodity Movements

Dairy, meats, and corn produced in eastern 

Ohio and western Pennsylvania travel 

eastbound along I-76 in high volumes 

(522, 254, and 285 million ton-miles 

annually, respectively) between Pittsburgh 

Table 28: Corridor #12 Major Highways

State Route Miles

New Jersey I-78 31 

Pennsylvania

I-76 198

I-78 78

I-81 37

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
68 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Dairy 7.87 million $4.44 billion 449 thousand

and Harrisburg. Interstate-81, running 

north from dairy, cattle, and grain farms in 

northern Maryland and Virginia, converges 

with the route just east of Harrisburg; here, 

a particularly large volume of agricultural 

products move as traffic from both Interstates 

merge to form I-78 and provide direct 

access to the fertile south-central region of 

Pennsylvania. Meat and dairy processing 

locations are spread throughout this region 

of the State as well.

Corridor Conditions and Performance

Infrastructure and travel conditions vary 

between the I-76 and I-78 sections of this 

route. Generally, the section of the corridor 

between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg are quite 

reliable, with slight variations in travel time 

near the eastern edge of the Appalachian 

Mountains near mile 175 of the route (Figure 

51). However, travel times begin to vary 

greatly near the convergence of I-81 and I-76 

in Harrisburg and as the route enter larger 

urban areas to the east, especially east of 

Allentown. The area between Allentown, 

Pennsylvania and Clinton, New Jersey also 

has several bridges rated to be in “poor” 

condition; overall, 15 bridges (7.5% of the 

total) on the route have a rating of “poor,” 

half of which fall between these cities. Truckrelated traffic fatalities also increase on this 

section of the route. 

Reliable (TTTR < 1.5) Unreliable (TTTR >= 1.5) No Data Available

Table 29: Corridor #12 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Dairy

Tonnage

7.87 M

Market 

Value

$4.44 B

Truck 

Units

449 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 51: Share of Corridor #12 with Reliable Truck Travel Times: East and West of Allentown, PA

Reliable (TTTR < 1.5) Unreliable (TTTR >= 1.5) No Data Available

East of 

Allentown, PA

West of 

Allentown, PA Truck travel time 

reliability on this 

route decreases 

rapidly east of I-476 

near Allentown, PA.

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 NPMRDS data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 69

An important route connecting the Midwest 

to the West, this corridor is made up of 

938 miles of Interstate 80, reaching from 

Omaha, NE, to Salt Lake City, UT, passing 

through Cheyenne, WY (Figure 52). This 

route is similar to the parallel (but much 

further South) Corridor #6 in that it provides 

east-west transportation for Midwestern 

agricultural producers. From Salt Lake City, 

trucks can head north along Corridor #14 

to Oregon or goods can switch from truck 

to rail to reach other western ports, such as 

the Port of Oakland or the Port of Seattle/

Tacoma. This corridor also provides access to 

the Missouri River and the large number of 

grain elevators and meat processing facilities 

in southern and eastern Nebraska.

Commodity Movements

In part due to its length, nearly all commodity 

groups move in high volumes along this 

corridor, totaling about 7.4 billion ton-miles 

of agricultural commodities moved each 

year (Figure 53). Agricultural volumes travel 

in significantly larger volumes through 

Nebraska than in other parts of the corridor, 

and volumes are higher in the West-East 

Salt Lake City, UT, to Omaha, NE Corridor #13

Figure 52: Context Map of Corridor #13

direction. Near the route’s 575th mile on 

Nebraska’s western edge, Interstate-70 

merges with I-80 to create the higher 

volumes on the corridor. The confluence of 

Source: Volpe Center analysis

State Route Miles

Iowa I-80 1

Nebraska I-80 455

Utah I-80 77

Wyoming I-80 405

Table 30: Corridor #13 Major Highways

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
70 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Corn 23.39 million $2.32 billion 1.52 million

Meat 3.64 million $14.24 billion 158 thousand

Vegetables 2.67 million $2.08 billion 128 thousand

Livestock 2.56 million $5.63 billion 166 thousand

Fruit 0.45 million $0.40 billion 21 thousand

several north-south routes with the corridor 

in Nebraska help create larger volumes on 

the corridor—especially US-83, Nebraska 

Route-47, and US-183, each of which are 

part of the HDAH and help connect Nebraska 

grain and livestock farmers with the corridor. 

Corn (1.1 billion ton-miles), soybeans (170 

million ton-miles), livestock (124 million 

ton-miles), and processed meats (259 

million ton-miles) travel eastward across 

Nebraska toward processing facilities near 

Omaha. Dairy (2 billion ton-miles), fruits 

(306 million ton-miles), and vegetables (1.6 

billion ton-miles) travel along the entirety of 

the corridor, most of which is also traveling 

eastbound. Meat commodities are by far 

the largest agricultural commodity traveling 

westward along the corridor (830 million 

ton-miles), indicating Midwestern-produced 

meats are moving toward the West Coast for 

either consumption or export via the northern 

west coast ports. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

There are fluctuations in travel time and 

reliability across the corridor, but overall the 

corridor experiences minimal congestion. 

Salt Lake City and Omaha are the points 

along the corridor with the highest AADT and 

the highest TTI values. However, a 10-mile 

stretch southeast of Omaha near Gretna, 

Nebraska has significant spikes in TTTR, 

creating issues with travel time reliability 

for trucks. The corridor is in primarily good 

condition, with almost 75% of the pavement 

in “good” condition and almost 24% in “fair” 

condition. There are six bridges in “poor” 

condition, comprising 1.6% of all bridges 

along the corridor. 

Table 31: Corridor #13 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Corn

Meat

Vegetables

Livestock

Fruit

Tonnage

23.39 M

3.64 M

2.67 M

2.56 M

0.45 M

Market 

Value

$2.32 B

$14.24 B

$2.08 B

$5.63 B

$0.40 B

Truck 

Units

1.52 M

158 K

128 K

166 K

21 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 53: Millions of Ton-Miles Moved Per Commodity for Corridor #13 Versus Average of All 

Other Analysis Corridors

0

400

800

1,200

1,600

2,000

Corridor #13 All Other Corridors (Average)

Source: Volpe 

Center analysis of 

2018 IHS Markit 

Transearch data

Corridor #13 

moves higherthan-average 

volumes of 

nearly all studied 

commodities 

compared to the 

other 16 analysis 

corridors.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 71

Corridor #14 Portland, OR, to Salt Lake City, UT

Figure 54: Context Map of Corridor #14

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Salt Lake City, UT is an important intermodal 

freight location, and connects the previous 

Corridor #13 to this corridor, #14 (Figure 54). 

This corridor consists of 763 miles of I-84 

that connects Portland, OR, to Salt Lake City 

by way of Boise, ID. Many goods that arrive in 

Salt Lake City from the Midwest may switch 

to rail at Salt Lake City to reach the Port of 

Seattle/Tacoma or the Port of Oakland, but 

significant highway freight continues on from 

Salt Lake City along this corridor to reach 

the Port of Portland for export. This corridor 

also runs along the Columbia River, providing 

access to river ports along the Columbia 

for goods to switch from trucks to barge 

transportation.

Commodity Movements

Overall, this corridor moves about 3.86 billion 

ton-miles of agricultural goods annually. Corn 

(607 million ton-miles), dairy (1.4 billion tonmiles), and vegetables (937 million ton-miles) 

move in high quantities in each direction 

throughout the length of the corridor, 

Table 32: Corridor #14 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Idaho I-84 276

Oregon I-84 370

Utah I-84 117

Source: Volpe Center analysis
72 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Dairy 10.64 million $4.26 billion 664 thousand

Vegetables 7.02 million $5.19 billion 339 thousand

Wheat 3.70 million $0.63 billion 240 thousand

moving toward processing and distribution 

centers on the West Coast or toward central 

processing hubs such as Salt Lake City, 

Denver, or Omaha (see Corridor #13). On the 

routes western edge, which travels along the 

Columbia River for nearly 150 miles, wheat 

grown primarily in Washington and Oregon 

travel in vast quantities—about 400 million 

ton-miles annually. Several grain elevators 

provide multimodal connections between 

this route and river barges traveling down 

the Columbia toward the Port of Portland 

(see Figure 55), where much of this product 

is likely prepared for export. Fruit, primarily 

traveling eastbound on the corridor through 

Oregon and Idaho (approx. 167 million 

ton-miles), and processed meats traveling 

westbound (158 million ton-miles) have a 

heavy presence on the corridor. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

This corridor experiences a wide range of 

travel time reliability, with the two biggest 

areas of congestion near Boise, ID, and near 

Salt Lake City, UT. The corridor as a whole 

averages .243 truck-related fatalities per 100 

million vehicle miles traveled (all vehicles), 

about 50% above the national average. 

Overall, condition of the corridor is good, 

with just over 80% of the pavement in “good 

“condition and 30% of bridges in “good” 

condition. The “fair” and “poor” pavement 

is concentrated along the middle of the 

corridor, outside of Boise, indicating that 

infrastructure in that area in particular could 

pose the greatest mobility challenge along 

this corridor.

Table 33: Corridor #14 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Dairy

Vegetables

Wheat

Tonnage

10.64 M

7.02 M

3.70 M

Market 

Value

$4.26 B

$5.19 B

$0.63 B

Truck 

Units

664 K

339 K

240 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 55: Grain Elevator Along the Columbia River Between Oregon and Washington - Corridor 

#14 Carries Higher Volumes of Wheat Than Any Other Analysis Corridor

Credit: Esteban Martinena Guerrero via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 73

Corridor #15

Stockton, CA, to Los Angeles, CA 

This corridor contains 334 miles of California 

State Route 99 (SR-99) and Interstate 5 

(I-5) and provides additional access to the 

State’s agricultural-producing Central Valley 

(Figure 56). As opposed to the parallel route 

of I-5 (see Corridor #1), this corridor runs 

through the directly through heart of one of 

the most agriculturally productive regions in 

the West and provides direct access between 

farms and pasturelands with local processing 

facilities and major centers of international 

trade in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.

Commodity Movements

Comparatively short by mileage, this corridor 

carries just under 3 billion ton-miles of 

agricultural goods by truck each year, 

underscoring the Central Valley’s productivity. 

Vegetables (280 million ton-miles), fruits 

(181 million ton-miles), dairy (1.51 billion 

ton-miles), and processed meats (166 

million ton-miles) produced in the Central 

Valley travel through the corridor, primarily 

southbound. Many of these products are 

processed in the valley, though some are 

likely prepared for export and processed 

Figure 56: Context Map of Corridor #15

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Table 34: Corridor #15 Major Highways

State Route Miles

California

I-5 67

SR-99 236

Others 31

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
74 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Vegetables 3.72 million $3.97 billion 177 thousand

at facilities in Southern California. Several 

rail intermodal facilities exist at both end 

points of the corridor, which may be used to 

transport agricultural commodities grown 

in California eastward for consumption in 

the rest of the country. Northbound, dairy 

products (579 million ton-miles) and corn 

(313 million ton-miles) also move in large 

quantities. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

The corridor tends to remain reliable between 

the major urbanized areas on the corridor, 

though significant spikes in unreliability are 

seen in each of the four major metropolitan 

areas on the route—Stockton, Fresno, 

Bakersfield, and Los Angeles—as well as near 

the confluence of I-5 and SR-99, south of 

Bakersfield. Pavement condition is rated to 

be in “fair” condition along the vast majority 

of the route, and approximately 5% is rated 

as “poor” condition, most of which falls in 

or nearby the major cities. Notably, bridge 

condition tends to improve as one travels 

southward on the corridor, particularly in and 

around the Los Angeles metropolitan area 

(Figure 57). Just 2% of bridges are rated 

“poor condition,” most of which lie on the 

northern half of the corridor.

Good Fair Poor Unknown

Pavement Condition

Corridor 

#15

All Other 

Corridors 

(Average)

Good Fair Poor

Corridor 

#15

All Other 

Corridors 

(Average)

Bridge Condition

Table 35: Corridor #15 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Vegetables

Tonnage

3.72 M

Market 

Value

$3.97 B

Truck 

Units

177 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 57: Pavement and Bridge Condition of Corridor #15 Versus the Average of all Other 

Analysis Corridors

Good Fair Poor Unknown

Pavement Condition

Corridor 

#15

All Other 

Analysis 

Corridors 

(Average)

Good Fair Poor

Corridor 

#15

All Other 

Analysis 

Corridors 

(Average)

Bridge Condition

While this corridor contains significantly more “poorly” and “fair” rated miles of pavement, 

a far greater percentage of bridges on the corridor are rated in “good” condition.

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 HPMS data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 75

Corridor #16 Sioux Falls, SD, to St. Louis, MO

Figure 58: Context Map of Corridor #16

Source: Volpe Center analysis

This corridor contains 595 miles of Interstate 

connecting the agricultural producers in 

upper Midwest with rail and inland waterway 

intermodal transfer facilities in the Great 

Plains and along the Missouri and Mississippi 

Rivers (Figure 58). The route contains two 

Table 36: Corridor #16 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Iowa I-29 152

Missouri

I-29 110

I-70 217

Others 32

South Dakota I-29 84

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
76 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Corn 38.40 million $3.81 billion 2.49 million

Soybean 11.78 million $4.06 billion 764 thousand

Meat 4.95 million $19.48 billion 215 thousand

Livestock 4.66 million $10.26 billion 302 thousand

distinct segments, with Interstate-29 (I29) travelling parallel to the Missouri River 

between South Dakota and Kansas City, MO, 

and Interstate-70 connecting Kansas City 

and St. Louis. 

Commodity Movements

This corridor carries just under 5 billion 

ton-miles of agricultural goods each year. 

Corn (2.12 billion ton-miles), soybeans (776 

million ton-miles), livestock (260 million 

ton-miles), meat (631 million ton-miles), 

vegetables (253 million ton-miles) and dairy 

(646 million ton-miles) all move in high 

volumes on this corridor. Corn and soybeans 

produced in Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas 

move along I-29 on their way to or from one 

of the dozens of grain elevators clustered 

along the route. A large drop-off in grain 

truck traffic south of Omaha, NE, suggests 

that grains are either being trucked eastwest along I-80 (see corridors #3 and #13), 

or being loaded onto river barges down the 

Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Hogs are 

also transported in high quantities along the 

route, likely destined for slaughterhouses 

and other processing facilities in an around 

Omaha. Soybeans produced in southeastern 

Nebraska tend to move toward Kansas City, 

suggesting that they are moving toward 

western ports via rail or loaded onto river 

barges and exported via the Mississippi River 

system. 

Between Kansas City and St. Louis, soybeans 

are produced and transported in much larger 

quantities, much of which travels to river 

ports along the Mississippi River and is likely 

destined for export. Meat, vegetables, and 

milk are also produced in large quantities 

in Missouri, and travel in high quantities on 

eastbound I-70 toward processing facilities in 

the St. Louis region or beyond. 

Corridor Conditions and Performance

While travel times throughout the entire 600-

mile corridor are quite reliable for trucks, 

significant delays are common in both the 

Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan 

areas. Travel times are particularly 

unpredictable in Kansas City near the I-29 

and I-70 connection. The I-70 section of 

the corridor sees significantly more overall 

traffic compared to the I-29 segments. 

Pavement condition on I-70 also tends to 

be rated higher than that of I-29, though 

less than 0.2% of the pavement along the 

entire corridor is rated in “poor” condition. 

Eleven total bridges on the corridor are 

rated in “poor” condition, most of which lie 

on I-29 between Omaha and Kansas City—

an important segment of the corridor for 

transporting soybeans. 

Table 37: Corridor #16 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Corn

Soybean

Meat

Livestock

Tonnage

38.40 M

11.78 M

4.95 M

4.66 M

Market 

Value

$3.81 B

$4.06 B

$19.48 B

$10.26 B

Truck 

Units

2.49 M

764 K

215 K

302 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance 77

Corridor #17

Wilmington, DE, to Norfolk, VA

An important route for transporting poultry 

through the Delmarva Peninsula, this 

corridor is 236 miles of US-13, traveling 

from Wilmington, DE, to Norfolk, VA (Figure 

59). The Delmarva Peninsula has one of the 

highest concentrations of poultry producers 

in the United States, and this corridor 

provides the peninsula with connections to 

both the Port of Wilmington and the Port of 

Norfolk, which are both important hubs for 

exports. Although this is a relatively short 

corridor compared to the others, this corridor 

is vital for poultry transportation in the 

peninsula and provides connections to other 

routes on the HDAH.

Commodity Movements

Each year, approximately 457 million tonmiles of agricultural products are trucked 

through this corridor. Corn (132 million 

ton-miles), poultry (108 million ton-miles), 

and processed meat (99 million ton-miles) 

comprise the majority of the agricultural 

freight movements along the corridor, with 

about two-thirds of these goods moving 

northbound. This peninsula contains a 

large amount of poultry farms. Many of 

Figure 59: Context Map of Corridor #17

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Table 38: Corridor #17 Major Highways

State Route Miles

Delaware

DE-1 37

US-13 56

Maryland US-13 42

Virginia

US-13 92

Others 9

Source: Volpe Center analysis

Map Legend

1 Mile Markers Along Corridor

Rail Intermodal Facilities

Slaughter & Processing Facilities (Meat & Poultry)

Grain Elevators

Port Terminals handling Agriculture Products

Navigable Inland Waterways

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways

Analysis Corridor

Metropolitan Area

State Boundaries
78 Agricultural Freight Flows and Performance The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Key Commodities Tonnage Market Value Truck Units

Poultry 1.81 mi1lion $5.04 billion 118 thousand

the animals produced in Delaware and 

Southern Maryland are trucked to nearby 

slaughterhouses and processing facilities 

scattered throughout the peninsula. Other 

commodities traveling along the corridor 

include corn (132 million ton-miles), 

soybeans (55 million ton-miles), and wheat 

26 million ton-miles), all traveling in both 

directions between Salisbury and Norfolk. 

Large, deep-water ports on both terminuses 

of the corridor are potential interim 

destinations for these products, where they 

continue traveling to either international or 

domestic destinations. At least some of the 

volumes continue beyond these ports, either 

being trucked to other regions, or potentially 

switching to rail via intermodal lifts.

Corridor Conditions and Performance

This corridor experiences varying amounts 

of congestion, with the stretch between 

Dover and Salisbury having particularly high 

TTI and TTTR, with an additional peak in 

TTI near Norfolk (Figure 60). Over 98% of 

the pavement along the corridor is in either 

“good” or “fair” condition, and there are no 

bridges along the corridor in “poor” condition. 

The congestion issues are likely the larger 

mobility challenge on this corridor, and not 

the condition of the infrastructure itself.

Table 39: Corridor #17 Key Commodities

Key 

Commodities 

Poultry

Tonnage

1.81 M

Market 

Value

$5.04 B

Truck 

Units

118 K

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

Figure 60: Corridor #17 Congestion Levels Based on Roadway Mileage

High 

Congestion

46%

Normal 

Congestion

31%

No Data 

23%

46% or more 

of Corridor 17 

experiences High 

Congestion.

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 2018 NPMRDS data
SECTION 5

Future Conditions and 

Investment Scenarios
80 Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios

This section describes how planned highway 

freight projects at the State level may affect 

future performance of the highway network. 

It uses the Federal Highway Administration’s 

(FHWA) Highway Economic Requirements 

System (HERS) model to evaluate the costs 

and benefits of alternative investment 

scenarios, and to analyze the impact of 

planned projects. While it is difficult to predict 

with great precision how any future highway 

network will perform, this section provides 

modeled estimates to illustrate the value of 

future conditions analysis. The overall goal 

is to provide information to stakeholders 

and decision-makers on the expected future 

conditions of the highway network and to 

describe the potential benefits of future 

investments. 

The section is organized in three parts:

1. State Freight Plan (SFP) Projects

2. Estimating the Impacts of SFP Projects

3. Alternative Investment Scenarios

The projects that State DOTs include in 

their SFPs will have a significant impact on 

freight performance. 

Nearly $17 billion of National Highway 

Freight Program (NHFP) and other funding 

sources were programmed in SFP projects 

between Fiscal Years 2016-2020. Twentyfour percent of these SFP projects were 

planned for highways that are part of the 

High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways 

(HDAH). 

The HERS model suggests that projects 

of this type and at this $17 billion level of 

investment can produce societal benefits 

in excess of costs, with a benefit-cost ratio 

greater than 2, relative to a baseline in 

which these investments are not made. 

Included among these estimated benefits 

are nearly $540 million per year in truck 

operating cost savings. With at least a 

portion of these savings likely to be passed 

on to shippers due to the competitive 

nature of the industry, these impacts 

could positively impact profitability for the 

agricultural sector. 

The modeling results also find that the costeffectiveness of increased highway freight 

investment would decline only slightly 

even if investment levels were doubled or 

quadrupled from the levels in the State 

Freight Plans, suggesting that many worthy 

projects could be funded if investment 

levels increase.

Key Findings

Estimated Impact - State Freight Plan Projects (2016-2020)

$17B

Funding programmed 

in State Freight Plan 

Projects from NHFP

24%

Percent of projects 

located on highways that 

are part of the HDAH

$540M

Estimated annual truck 

operating cost savings
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios 81

State Freight Plan Projects

Transportation infrastructure projects 

typically have long lead times for planning, 

and ultimately yield fixed infrastructure with 

lifespans measured in decades. As a result, 

State DOTs must consider both current and 

future highway freight infrastructure needs 

when making investments in the system. 

From a freight perspective, a State DOT 

must consider the dynamic nature of its 

most important supply chains, including the 

agriculture industry, when assessing current 

and future needs. Other considerations 

include the potential changes in product 

volumes and production patterns, as well 

as changes in the overall transportation 

landscape, such as fuel prices and 

congestion levels. 

The passage of the 2015 Fixing America’s 

Surface Transportation (FAST) Act 

established for the first time a freight-specific 

funding source within the larger Federal-Aid 

Highway Program. The NHFP requires each 

State (plus the District of Columbia and 

Puerto Rico) to develop an SFP before it is 

able to access its funding allocation from this 

program. SFPs are required to define critical 

rural and urban freight corridors and system 

trends within the State; major bottlenecks 

and other issues; and a freight investment 

plan describing what projects the State plans 

to funds using the NHFP.

These plans are the most consistent source 

to date describing how each State prioritizes 

freight investments. Planned projects 

included in the SFPs can provide an estimate 

of the improvements expected on U.S. 

highways, including on the HDAH. Not every 

project that will affect highway condition 

and performance is included in SFPs, but 

for the purposes of this project, the analysis 

presumes that States have included the most 

important freight projects. 

For this analysis, projects listed in SFPs 

were aggregated, georeferenced, and 

assigned additional characteristics such as 

functional class and project type.7 Appendix 

C: Methodology includes more information 

about this study’s approach to aggregating 

SFP project lists. Together, these projects 

account for just over $27 billion in planned 

7 These planned projects reflect the State Freight Plans 

published as of December 2019. State DOTs may modify 

these plans or projects at any time.

Figure 61: State Freight Plan Investments, 2016-2020, by Project Type and HERS Modeling 

Capability (Millions $)

Note: NHFP figures listed include total project costs of NHFP-funded projects, which are made up of NHFP 

dollars and State matching funds. Appendix C includes information on the methodology. 

Source: Volpe Center analysis of 51 State Freight Plans as published in December 2019 
82 Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

spending (some using NHFP funds while 

some projects use other sources of funding). 

However, certain project types cannot be 

analyzed in the HERS model (such as bridge 

improvements, truck parking, and some 

types of safety improvements). Appendix C: 

Methodology includes more detail on project 

types. When restricting the analysis to project 

types that are covered by the HERS model, 

the resulting total is $18.9 billion in highway 

infrastructure improvements for the period 

between fiscal years 2016 and 2020 (Figure 

61). This dataset was used to estimate how 

this level of planned investment would affect 

highways overall (Figure 62), as well as the 

HDAH (Figure 63).

Notably, 24% of all SFP projects by dollar 

value are on the HDAH, and thus are assumed 

to directly benefit agriculture highway 

freight performance. Projects not on the 

HDAH may also benefit agricultural highway 

freight performance because, although the 

HDAH represents 80% of agriculture freight 

movements for the commodities selected 

for study in this report, all highways support 

agricultural freight.

The SFP projects on the HDAH tend to 

be reconstruction/resurfacing (26%), 

capacity expansion (24%), and interchange 

improvements (34%), although other 

categories are also represented. While several 

of the projects are in areas with demonstrated 

reliability and congestion challenges, closer 

analysis at a corridor or statewide level would 

be needed to understand the specific impacts 

that these projects are expected to have on 

the overall network and is beyond the scope 

of this report.

Credits: (clockwise) Tyler Olson, Henadzi Pechan, and Valmedia Creatives via 123rf.com
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios 83

Figure 62: State Freight Plan Projects by Type and Cost, Fiscal Years 2016-2020

States with 

dashed borders 

indicate that 

State reports 

additional 

funding sources 

beyond their 

NHFP and 

matching funds 

in their State 

Freight Plan’s 

constrained 

program.

Source: Volpe Center analysis of State Freight Plans as published in 

December 2019 and 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data
84 Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Figure 63: State Freight Plan Projects Affecting the High-Volume Domestic Agriculture Highways by Type and Cost, Fiscal Years 2016-2020

Source: Volpe Center analysis of State Freight Plans as published in 

December 2019 and 2018 IHS Markit Transearch data

States with 

dashed borders 

indicate that 

State reports 

additional 

funding sources 

beyond their 

NHFP and 

matching funds 

in their State 

Freight Plan’s 

constrained 

program.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios 85

Estimating the Impacts of State Freight Plan Projects

HERS is a model of the U.S. highway system used to forecast the impacts of different 

investment scenarios. The project team used HERS to estimate the aggregate impacts of the 

SFP projects.

Rather than developing a project-by-project estimate, the HERS model is able to estimate 

the aggregate impacts of a national package of highway investment that is equal to the 

sum of the SFP projects. The HERS model estimates should be considered illustrative of the 

overall magnitude of the potential impacts these planned projects will have on the highway 

network. The model output does not reflect the impacts of the SFP projects specifically, or 

their allocation across particular States and highway facilities. See Appendix C for a detailed 

methodology of the HERS modeling approach. 

Why Not Model 

at the Project 

Level?

While a number of 

tools are available 

to estimate these 

types of impacts at 

the project-specific 

level, rather than as a 

national total, there 

are many challenges 

to this approach:

• Project level analysis requires detailed information on the nature of the programmed improvements, 

but this level of detail is typically not available from the SFPs. In many cases the project team had to make 

inferences about the nature of the project from only a title or short description, and the full scope of work 

is not listed. 

• Even projects with adequately detailed descriptions were not generally accompanied by the 

data needed for analysis, such as current traffic volumes, speeds, pavement condition, and roadway 

configuration. Compiling this information via queries of the Highway Performance Monitoring System 

(HPMS) and other databases, across hundreds of projects, was not feasible within the resource constraints 

of the current research effort. 

• Many project types are difficult to model quantitatively in project-level Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) 

models such as Cal-B/C because they require more sophisticated microsimulation of traffic impacts (e.g., 

for interchange or intersection re-configurations). See Figure 61.

• In other cases, project impacts are largely indirect and inherently difficult to model. For example, 

expanded truck parking may reduce illegal truck parking along highway ramps, improving security and 

safety. However, modeling these impacts with any sort of quantitative precision would be very challenging. 
86 Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Modeling Results

The HERS model estimates benefits of 

highway investments across multiple 

categories, including safety improvements, 

reduced travel time and vehicle operating 

costs, and avoided emissions (Table 40). 

These impacts are converted to monetary 

equivalents using parameters in the model, 

such as the value of travel time savings. 

HERS estimates the incremental benefits 

of the SFP projects – that is, the benefits 

that would accrue, relative to a baseline in 

which these projects are not funded – to be 

$40.2 billion over a 5-year period, compared 

to $18.9 billion in incremental project 

costs. Incremental costs are defined as the 

additional project capital costs. This implies 

a benefit-cost ratio of 2.13 for these projects, 

again relative to the baseline. 

With this level of incremental investment, 

HERS expects 18,705 lane-miles of road 

would be improved, and 1,171 lane-miles 

would be added. Roadway surface condition 

would improve slightly, from an average 

of 110.6 to an average of 109.3 on the 

International Roughness Index (IRI) scale. 

Average speeds on the highway network are 

estimated to rise by 0.02 mph nationally, with 

delay falling by 0.01 hours per 1,000 vehicle 

miles traveled (VMT). These seemingly small 

changes, when multiplied across the entire 

Nation’s highways, would yield travel time 

savings valued at over $1 billion per year. 

Safety benefits likewise show a modest 

improvement of $0.10 per 1,000 VMT, but 

this adds up to about $267 million per year 

in safety benefits, when monetized at U.S. 

DOT’s standard values of avoided injury. 

Looking specifically at the impacts on trucks, 

overall truck operating costs are reduced by 

an estimated $1.00 per 1,000 VMT. When 

combined with truck travel time savings, this 

yields an estimated national total of $540 

million per year in trucking cost savings. This 

is likely a conservative estimate, because 

the benefits for trucks are likely higher on 

the freight-specific projects selected by 

the States, rather than the more general 

impacts calculated by the model. These 

benefits would accrue to all trucks, not only 

trucks carrying agricultural freight. However, 

agriculture will certainly benefit as the largest 

component of highway freight. 

Table 40: HERS Model Predicted Benefits of State Freight Plan (SFP) Investment 

Source: Volpe Center analysis using HERS model and State Freight Plans

Truck Operating Cost Savings, $/1000 VMT $1.00

Delay Reduced (Hours per 1000 VMT) 0.01

Speed Improvement (Average, mph) 0.02

Roadway Surface Improvement (Reduction in Average IRI) 1.3

Lane-miles Added 1,171

Lane-miles Improved 18,705

Benefit-Cost Ratio of Incremental Spending 2.13

Benefit-Cost Ratio (Overall) 4.81

Estimated Incremental Benefits (5-Year Period) $40.2 billion

Total Incremental Spending (5-Year Period) $18.9 billion
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios 87

The $18.9 billion investment 

level in the State Freight 

Plans is likely to be highly 

cost-effective.

While projects programmed into State Freight 

Plans represent a small share of a State’s 

overall highway spending, these projects 

provide significant impacts and benefits to 

the highway network. These include safety 

benefits, improved pavement quality, avoided 

delays and reduction of operating costs. 

Although the HERS model is not designed 

to capture the impacts of the specific Stateselected projects, the results also suggest 

that the $18.9 billion investment level in 

the State Freight Plans is likely to be highly 

cost-effective. For every dollar invested into 

the highway network by a State DOT, users 

of the system on average realize more than 

$2 worth of safety benefits, vehicle operating 

cost savings, and other benefits.

Insights on Project Selection

To shed light on State-level decision-making 

and project selection, the project team 

ran the HERS model with the total level of 

investment from the SFP projects ($18.9B 

over 5 years—see Appendix C). The project 

team compared SFP projects against a 

scenario in which the same amount of money 

was invested, but unconstrained by project 

type or functional class. This allows the 

composition of projects by project type and 

functional class to be compared between 

the SFP projects and a HERS-calculated 

optimum, based on projects with the highest 

benefit-cost ratio. As a further refinement, the 

project team ran the model with the funding 

split by functional class to roughly match that 

of the SFP projects. That split is roughly $17.6 

billion on HPMS classes 1-3 (Interstates; 

other freeways and expressways, and 

principal arterials), and $1.3 billion on lower 

functional classes (arterials and collectors). 

For the analysis by project type, projects 

were classified as “capacity expansion” (such 

as construction of additional lane-miles or 

geometric improvements) or “preservation” 

(such as rebuilding or resurfacing a roadway).

The results of the HERS modeling found 

that the SFP projects allocate 1.92 times 

more funding to Interstate projects, as 

opposed to non-Interstate projects, than the 

HERS model’s allocation, which is based 

on maximizing projects’ estimated costeffectiveness. SFP projects are also more 

oriented toward capacity expansion, spending 

1.4 times greater in this category than the 

model’s calculated optimum, versus 0.6 

Figure 64: Comparison of State Freight Plans and HERS Outputs by Project Type ($ millions)

$13,216 

$9,392 

$5,452 

$9,517 

 $-

 $5,000

 $10,000

 $15,000

 $20,000

State Freight Plans HERS Output

Capacity Preservation

Source: Volpe Center analysis using HERS Model and State Freight Plans
88 Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

times the model’s allocation for preservation 

projects. Overall, the SFPs spend 2.5 times 

more than the HERS model’s estimated 

optimal mix on capacity expansion on 

Interstates, and only 27% of the HERS 

allocation on preservation projects for lower 

functional classes. Similar ratios apply if 

comparing the State-planned freight project 

spending against a breakdown of overall 

highway investment, such as the “Sustain” 

scenario in the most recent Conditions and 

Performance Report (FHWA, 2019). 

There are many reasons why this pattern 

could emerge, and may simply reflect an 

analysis of the most promising freight 

projects at the State level. There are also 

limitations to the HERS model, such as the 

inability to estimate benefits for certain 

project types. However, the relative lack of 

attention to lower functional classes and to 

road condition is consistent with stakeholder 

concerns about local roads that are critical 

for agricultural freight, and that poor road 

and bridge conditions can be a limitation on 

freight movements. The focus on Interstates 

and capacity projects may be associated with 

data-availability or institutional factors such 

as:

● Limited data availability on lowervolume roads;

● Lack of analytical capability for 

quantifying the impacts of preservation 

projects; and

● Less political support for routine 

preservation projects relative to higherprofile expansion projects.

● States may wish to analyze their freight project selections using benefit-cost 

tools to ensure an optimal mix between capacity and preservation projects, and 

among highway functional classes.

● A greater emphasis on non-Interstate projects and on roadway preservation 

projects rather than new capacity may yield greater overall returns on 

investment. This is based on national-level HERS modeling results across all 

current SFPs, and is not necessarily applicable to any given State or corridor. This 

overall finding is consistent with stakeholder input about the importance of good 

pavement conditions and the role that smaller, local roads play in facilitating 

agricultural freight movements. 

Potential Implications for Highway Freight Programming

Figure 65: Comparison of State Freight Plans to HERS Output by Functional Class ($ Millions)

$11,047

$5,755

$7,621

$13,145

 $-

 $5,000

 $10,000

 $15,000

 $20,000

State Freight Plans HERS Output

Interstate Non-Interstate

Source: Volpe Center analysis using HERS Model and State Freight Plans
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios 89

It is important to note that this was the 

first time that State DOTs were required to 

prepare SFPs, so these initial plans may 

not entirely reflect State DOT’s overall 

approach. Network designations and funding 

eligibility could also play a role in how State 

DOTs select Federally funded projects, and 

contribute to differences between overall 

spending patterns and funding allocations in 

the SFPs.

Table 41: HERS Model Predicted Outcomes of Several Levels of Highway Investment

State Freight 

Plan Projects

2x State 

Freight Plan 

Level

4x State 

Freight Plan 

Level

Total Spending (5-Year Period) $18.9 billion $37.8 billion $75.6 billion

Estimated Benefits (5-Year Period) $40.2 billion $78.3 billion $151.1 billion

Overall Benefit-Cost Ratio 4.81 4.64 4.35

Benefit-Cost Ratio for Incremental Spending 2.13 2.07 2.0

Lane-miles Improved 18,705 35,878 76,011

Lane-miles Added 1,171 2,438 4,778

Roadway Surface Improvement (Reduction in 

Average IRI) 1.3 2.5 5.2

Speed Improvement (Average, mph) 0.02 0.05 0.10

Delay Reduced (Hours per 1,000 VMT) 0.01 0.02 0.05

Truck Operating Cost Savings, $/1,000 VMT $1.00 $1.80 $3.80

Source: Volpe Center analysis using HERS Model and State Freight Plans

Alternative Scenarios: Highway 

Freight Performance with 

Enhanced Investment 

If current levels of investment in the highway 

freight system are highly cost-effective, would 

additional funding provide similar benefits? 

The HERS model was also used to explore 

what the impact of additional freight-related 

funding might be on the highway network. 

Specifically, two scenarios were tested:

● Highway freight investments at twice 

the current level of modeled spending, 

i.e., $37.8 billion over a 5-year period

● Highway freight investments at four 

times the current level of modeled 

spending, i.e., $75.6 billion over a 

5-year period

HERS found that these theoretical increased 

funding amounts were similarly costeffective, as they would produce societal 

benefits in excess of costs, albeit at a slightly 

decreasing rate due to diminishing returns 

(Table 41). That is, even if investment via 

SFPs were raised to two or four times the 

current level, the model is still able to identify 

highway projects that are cost-effective, 

with incremental benefits exceeding the 

incremental costs by a factor of 2.0 or more.

In the case where the highway freight 

investments are doubled, the incremental 

benefits of the investments over the 5-year 

period are estimated to be $78.3 billion, 

compared to $37.82 billion in project costs. 

This implies a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of 

2.07 for the incremental funding, and overall 

BCR of 4.64. The model also estimates that 

doubling their freight-project spending can 

lead to improvement of 35,878 lane-miles of 

road, and the addition of 2,438 lane-miles. 

Roadway surface condition would improve 

by 2.5 IRI as an overall national average and 

average speeds on the highway network are 

estimated to rise by 0.05 mph nationally, and 

delay reduced by 0.02 hours per 1,000 VMT. 

Looking specifically at the impacts on trucks, 

truck operating costs would be reduced by 

$1.80 per 1,000 VMT. These are partially 
90 Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

offset by a slight increase in fuel costs, likely 

due to increased speeds, but the overall 

effect is positive.

In the second alternative case, highway 

freight investments would be four times the 

level of the current SFPs. The incremental 

benefits of investments are estimated at 

$151.11 billion, compared to $75.64 billion 

in project costs. This results in a BCR of 2.0 

for the incremental spending, and an overall 

BCR of 4.35. These BCRs are smaller than 

the first case due to diminishing returns on 

investment. The model also estimates that 

quadrupling their freight-project spending 

would lead to improvement of 76,011 lanemiles of road, and the addition of 4,778 

lane-miles. Roadway surface condition would 

improve by 5.2 IRI as an overall national 

average and average speeds on the highway 

network are estimated to rise by 0.10 mph 

nationally, and delay reduced by 0.048 hours 

per 1,000 VMT. Looking specifically at the 

impacts on trucks, truck operating costs 

would be reduced by $3.80 per 1,000 VMT.

Across both investment scenarios the HERS 

model estimates a significant number of 

projects are funded which provide significant 

benefits to the highway network (projects 

with benefit/cost ratios > 2.0). This indicates 

that additional funding for the highway 

network—even at large magnitude increases—

would create value in excess of the cost. 

For instance, even modest reductions in 

delay and improvements to IRI can generate 

significant truck operating costs savings 

when generated across the network; these 

savings have slightly diminishing returns but 

continue to provide significant value, even if 

current funding levels were to be quadrupled. 

There is no way to accurately model what 

proportion of these benefits would accrue to 

the agriculture industry. However, because 

approximately one-quarter of the SFP 

projects are on the HDAH, and because the 

agriculture industry is the single largest 

component of freight travel on U.S. highways, 

it is reasonable to expect that increased 

investment in highway freight projects would 

improve the HDAH.

Additional funding for the highway freight network - even at 

fairly large magnitude increases - would create value in excess of 

the cost.

Figure 66: Annual Truck Cost Savings for Alternative Investment Level Scenarios

241.6

513.4

966.4

302.0

543.6

1147.6

-30.2 -30.2 -60.4

 $(100)

 $100

 $300

 $500

 $700

 $900

 $1,100

 $1,300

State Freight Plans 2x Investment Scenario 4x Investment Scenario

Travel Time Savings Operating Costs Fuel Costs

Source: Volpe Center analysis using HERS Model and State Freight Plans
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Future Conditions and Investment Scenarios 91

Figure 67: Benefits and Costs (in Billion $)

$280 $299 $318 $356

$1,398 $1,439 $1,477 $1,549

 $-

 $200

 $400

 $600

 $800

 $1,000

 $1,200

 $1,400

 $1,600

Baseline State Freight

Plans

2x Investment

Scenario

4x Investment

Scenario

Total Cost of Initial Improvements ($B) Total Benefits ($B over 5-year period)

Source: Volpe Center analysis using HERS Model and State Freight Plans

Figure 68: Average BCR over a 5-Year Modeling Period

4.99 4.81 4.64 

4.35 

 -

 1.00

 2.00

 3.00

 4.00

 5.00

 6.00

Baseline State Freight

Plans

2x Investment

Scenario

4x Investment

Scenario

Source: Volpe Center analysis using HERS Model and State Freight Plans
SECTION 6

Notable Practices Case 

Studies
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 93

Notable Practices Case Studies

State DOTs, regional planning agencies, and their local partners have developed innovative 

approaches to filling freight data gaps, engaging freight stakeholders, and analyzing the 

performance of the highway freight system. This section provides case studies of notable 

practices in freight planning and analysis (Table 42), which demonstrate a range of 

innovations agencies are using to improve highway networks and multimodal connections in 

their jurisdictions. 

Many of the practices highlighted in these case studies apply to highway freight generally. 

However, each case study also includes a description of the potential impacts that are 

specific to agricultural freight.

Table 42: Freight Planning and Analysis Case Studies 

Freight Planning and Analysis Topic Agency

1 Cross-Department Coordination for Improved 

Agricultural Freight Infrastructure

Missouri Department of 

Transportation

2 Advanced Freight Networks and Data Systems Washington State Department 

of Transportation

3 State Grant Programs to Enhance Multimodal 

Freight Connectivity 

Iowa Department of 

Transportation and others

4 Prioritizing Freight Projects with Data-Driven 

Methods and Tools 

Iowa Department of 

Transportation

5 Collaborative Freight Project Identification and 

Prioritization 

St. Louis Regional 

Freightway

6 State Freight Advisory Committees Texas Department of 

Transportation

Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com Source: Volpe Center
1 - Case Study

Cross-Department Coordination 

for Improved Agricultural Freight 

Infrastructure

Overview

The Missouri DOT (MoDOT) works closely with the 

Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA) on a number of 

transportation planning initiatives to enhance the State’s 

rural transportation network. In matters of freight planning, 

the two agencies work side by side to plan for and deliver 

infrastructure that supports the State’s large agricultural 

economy. 

The two agencies coordinate on a variety of initiatives, and 

a 2019 effort to prioritize rural bridges for investment is a 

particularly notable example of this partnership. Working 

with MDA to incorporate perspectives and needs from the 

agriculture industry and local communities, MoDOT was 

able to prioritize many rural bridges important to rural and 

agricultural economies for investment over a 4-year period. 

Implementing Agency

Missouri Department of Transportation

Focus Area

Prioritization | Freight Planning 

Local Contact

Eric Curtit, AICP 

Transportation Planning Director, 

Missouri Department of Transportation 

Eric.Curtit@modot.mo.gov

573-526-1374
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 95

Notable Practice Highlights

► Missouri’s Departments of Transportation and Agriculture coordinate closely to 

improve rural freight infrastructure. 

► The agencies work together to share stakeholder insights, data, and other relevant 

information to enhance freight and transportation planning. 

► Together, these agencies prioritized and programmed more than $450 million 

for bridge projects in FY2020-2023, many of which are located in vital rural 

transportation corridors serving the agriculture industry.

Implementation Approach

MoDOT and MDA coordinate and share 

information regularly on freight programs 

and studies related to agriculture. Some 

examples of this coordination include:

● Inventorying Agricultural Processing 

Facilities: MDA tracks the locations of 

agricultural grain elevators and other 

processing locations and shares this 

information with MoDOT; when MDA 

learns about a new grain elevator 

or development, MDA passes the 

information to MoDOT to inform freight 

planning and analysis. 

● Coordination on Corridor Analyses: 

MoDOT periodically conducts corridorlevel studies on key transportation 

routes throughout the State to identify 

strategies for improving roadway 

performance. Particularly in rural 

highway corridors carrying large 

volumes of agricultural commodities, 

MDA actively assists MoDOT in these 

analyses by sharing data and passing 

along agricultural stakeholder insights 

relevant to the corridor. 

● Inland Waterways Planning: Inland 

waterway ports and barge operations 

are an important multimodal 

connection for both the agricultural 

shipping industry and the Missouri 

economy. MDA assists MoDOT in 

developing strategies to strengthen 

the connections between the highway 

network and inland waterways by 

sharing insights and concerns of 

agricultural stakeholders. 

The Focus on Bridges program is perhaps 

the most notable example of cooperation 

between MDA and MoDOT to improve rural 

infrastructure important to agricultural 

freight. As of 2019, the State has 10,384 

bridges, of which more than 900 are rated in 

poor condition, 1,131 are weight-restricted, 

and 413 are both weight-restricted and in 

poor condition. MoDOT worked with MDA to 

identify the rural bridges where investment 

and upgrades will make the largest difference 

to local transportation and freight operations. 

The agencies prioritized bridges that were 

just one lane or weight restricted, especially 

those in areas with high traffic volumes. MDA 

and MoDOT also worked together to prioritize 

certain bridges with lower traffic volumes, 

which are vital to local needs and network 

connectivity. For instance, a rural community 

served by one principal roadway that includes 

a bridge might be prioritized higher than 

other bridges with greater traffic volumes 

based on the critical access nature of that 

route. 

MoDOT significantly prioritized bridge 

investment under the Focus on Bridges 

program. More than 260 high-priority bridges 

are programmed for more than $450 million 

of investment and upgrades between 

fiscal years 2020 and 2023 (Figure 69). 

The program includes $50 million of State 

General Fund revenues, a $301 million State 

bond program, and Federal grant funding 

from both the U.S. DOT Infrastructure for 

Rebuilding America (INFRA) discretionary 

grant program and the U.S. DOT Competitive 

Highway Bridge Program funding. 

With the help of MDA, a significant number 

of these bridge projects are located in highpriority rural areas. In August 2019, U.S. 

DOT’s Competitive Highway Bridge Program

awarded MoDOT $20.8 million to replace 

more than 40 rural bridges that are in poor 
96 Notable Practices Case Studies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Figure 69: Bridges in the State of Missouri Slated for Investment Between 2020 and 2023 Under 

the Focus on Bridges Program

Source: Missouri Infrastructure Investment - Focus on Bridges, Progress Report for July 2020

condition, weight-restricted, supported by 

timber pile, or one-lane wide but carry twoway traffic. Without the replacement of these 

bridges, the State projected that at least half 

would be closed within 8 years.

Outcomes and Results

MoDOT and MDA’s partnership helps ensure 

that the State’s infrastructure investment 

plans take the needs of rural and agricultural 

communities into consideration. As 

evidenced by the Focus on Bridges program, 

this open channel of communication and 

cooperation creates tangible improvements 

in the highway infrastructure supporting the 

State’s agricultural supply chains.
2 - Case Study

Advanced Freight Networks and 

Data Systems

Overview

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) 

developed its statewide Freight and Goods Transportation 

System (FGTS) to identify and designate freight corridors 

based on freight tonnage and their important to freight 

movement. The FGTS network provides comprehensive freight 

data to the different regions and municipalities in the State 

and create freight corridor classification criteria to support 

various transportation planning processes and inform freight 

investment decisions. 

WSDOT has maintained the FGTS statewide freight network 

since 1995. The National Highway Freight Network (NHFN) 

includes 1,079 miles of highway in Washington while 

WSDOT’s 2019 update of the FGTS includes 22,155 miles 

of corridors, providing an expanded network for truck freight 

in the State with several different corridor classifications. 

The FGTS framework includes two different types of freight 

network designation: (1) tonnage-based classification system 

ranging from high to low tonnage corridors; and (2) truck 

freight economic corridor designation by taking into account 

freight tonnage, freight system resiliency, and first/last mile 

connectivity to freight intensive land uses such as agricultural 

facilities. Designation of these corridors—particularly when 

mapped and compared to supply chains of important major 

industries in the Washington, including agriculture—informs 

investment decisions on the freight highway system for both 

WSDOT and State decision-makers. 

Implementing Agency

Washington State Department of 

Transportation

Focus Area

Freight Data | Proritization

Local Contact

Wenjuan Zhao

Multimodal Freight Systems Planning Engineer, 

Washington State Department of Transportation

Wenjuan.Zhao@wsdot.wa.gov

360-705-6990
98 Notable Practices Case Studies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Implementation Approach

The FGTS includes data on truck, waterway, 

and rail corridors, and WSDOT works 

collaboratively with local and regional 

governments to update the FGTS biennially. 

WSDOT collects truck volume and vehicle 

classification data on State highways through 

more than 4,000 truck traffic counters.8

The agency then converts these counts into 

tonnage estimates based on each vehicle 

types average weight and count on the 

roadway.9 County governments collect local 

data and submit it to FGTS via the County 

Road Administration Board’s (CRAB) Roads 

Mobility Database. Local governments also 

provide additional data to governments also 

provide additional data to WSDOT about 

local conditions, including truck volumes and 

tonnage on local roadways as available. 

WSDOT works with local partners to collect 

data and update freight network designation, 

which is classified into five categories 

based on annual freight tonnage moved. 

Building upon FGTS tonnage, WSDOT in 

2014 expanded the FGTS framework and 

incorporated a new designation, Truck Freight 

8 While WSDOT operated a total of 4,071 truck 

counters in the State, the agency reports that 46% of 

them record truck traffic, while the remaining 54% record 

total traffic (trucks plus passenger vehicles); for those 

counters which only record total traffic, truck volumes 

are estimated as a percent of total traffic using truck 

percentage counts from previous years.

9 The average weights are based on the truck weight 

data collected from weigh-in-motion sites in Washington 

State. For more information, see FGTS technical 

documentation.

Economic Corridors, which are the routes 

major statewide industries use most often 

to move goods by truck through the State. 

WSDOT defines three components of Truck 

Freight Economic Corridors: 

● High Volume Corridors, which carry 

more than 4 million tons of freight 

annually; 

● Alternative Freight Routes, which 

serve as alternates to cross-State 

High Volume Corridors during severe 

weather or other disruptions to 

increase freight system resiliency; and 

● First- and last-mile connector 

routes—those roadways connecting 

high volume freight corridors with 

freight-intensive land uses such as 

agricultural facilities. 

After each update, the State’s Freight 

Mobility Strategic Investment Board (FMSIB) 

officially adopts the designated strategic 

freight corridors, which is a subset of the 

FGTS system and meets certain tonnage 

threshold. FMSIB uses this designation 

to evaluate freight project eligibility for 

the FMSIB grant program and inform its 

investment decisions.

WSDOT prioritizes its National Highway 

Freight Program (NHFP) funds—the major 

highway freight funding sources administered 

by the Federal Government. Additionally, the 

State tracks and reports freight performance 

trends for the FGTS network, such as freight 

traffic volume and tonnage shipped, and 

is considering additional performance 

measures to evaluation system congestion 

and reliability.

Outcomes and Results

WSDOT uses the FGTS to support freight 

planning efforts, including analyzing 

Notable Practice Highlights

► WSDOT combines data from State, county, and local truck counts to create an 

expanded multimodal freight network, called the Freight and Goods Transportation 

System (FGTS).

► Including local insights in the development of FGTS enhances the network’s 

accuracy.

► WSDOT updates FGTS biennially with the latest freight volumes, tonnage, and flow 

data.

► With each update, WSDOT aims to build additional functionality into the dataset, 

expanding its usefulness to state and local decision-making.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 99

transportation supply chains for major 

industries in the Washington economy, 

including agriculture. Using FGTS, WSDOT 

analyzes the proximity of production zones, 

relevant processing centers, and key export 

locations such as the Ports of Seattle-Tacoma 

and Port of Portland in relation to Truck 

Freight Economic Corridors. In this way, 

WSDOT and its local partners gain insight 

into how the transportation system aligns 

with key commodities’ production areas. 

The WSDOT Freight Mobility Plan describes 

this type of supply chain analysis for several 

key agriculture exports, tracing the typical 

routes and modes of travel each commodity 

utilizes as they move through the process of 

harvesting, processing, and exporting as well 

as for consumption throughout the State. 

Such analysis enables WSDOT to better 

understand how freight corridors are being 

used by industry, and identify needs and 

opportunities for improving these corridors. 

The Freight System Plan illustrates this 

analysis and key conclusions for several 

agricultural commodities including apples 

(Figure 70), potatoes, milk, and wheat, as 

well as other key industries like aerospace. 

Additionally, WSDOT provides FGTS data to 

its Metropolitan Planning Organizations, 

county, and local governments to aid 

their transportation and freight planning 

processes. This helps to enhance and 

standardize freight data and availability 

across partner organizations, and provides a 

consistent source of information across the 

state.

Figure 70: Apple Supply Chain in Relation to WSDOT’s 2017 Truck Freight Economic Corridors

Source: 2017 Washington State Freight System Plan
3 - Case Study

State Grant Programs To Enhance 

Multimodal Freight Connectivity

Overview

Many agricultural freight trips are multimodal, including transfers from 

truck to rail or barge, but funding multimodal infrastructure can be 

a challenge. State DOTs often have relatively little information about 

multimodal facilities (typically, privately owned) and their surrounding 

infrastructure needs. However, agricultural freight shippers often 

describe delays associated with these locations. To help address this 

issue, some State DOTs have created local grant programs that use 

National Highway Freight Program funds apportioned to the State to 

fund local infrastructure or improvements to multimodal facilities. 

Iowa DOT’s Linking Iowa’s Freight Transportation Systems (LIFTS) 

program is a particularly notable example.

The NHFP allows States to use up to 10% of their apportioned funding 

to finance non-traditional highway and multimodal investments. LIFTS 

grants enable local agencies and private sector partners to access 

funds to make improvements to their local freight infrastructure that 

might otherwise go unfunded. Traditional highway projects such as 

resurfacing, adding lanes, and restriping are not eligible for LIFTS 

grants. Those projects are considered through the Value, Condition, 

and Performance (VCAP) scoring prioritization process and funded 

with the remaining 90% of Iowa’s NHFP funds (see p.104)—ensures 

the LIFTS grants’ focus remains on local and multimodal freight 

infrastructure projects.

The intent of LIFTS is to improve the multimodal freight connections 

in the Iowa transportation system and to provide additional 

transportation options for moving goods throughout the State. As a 

secondary benefit of the LIFTS program, Iowa DOT is able to learn 

more about local freight infrastructure needs and identify trends that 

inform statewide freight planning and project development.

Implementing Agency

Iowa Department of Transportation 

and others

Focus Area

Local Freight Infrastructure | Funding

Local Contact

Laura Hutzell 

Rail Development Manager, 

Iowa Department of Transportation 

Laura.Hutzell@iowadot.us

515-239-1066
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 101

Implementation Approach

Iowa DOT developed the LIFTS grant program 

in 2016, originally funding it with State 

Infrastructure Bank funds. After receiving 

several strong applications in the first year, 

the agency continued offering the program, 

annually using a portion of its National 

Highway Freight Program funds. State DOTs 

may use up to 10% of their apportioned 

NHFP funding on non-highway freight 

investments, including intermodal projects, 

deployment of truck intelligent transportation 

systems, freight rail improvements, and 

projects that “directly impact freight network 

performance.” Iowa DOT uses this 10% to 

fund the LIFTS program. 

Iowa DOT defines eligible applicants for 

LIFTS to include any “transportation provider, 

transportation user, city, county, or any 

other entity with an interest in a freight 

transportation improvement.” The agency 

strongly encourages joint applications 

between public and private entities or 

between two private entities. If a public 

entity is involved in a project, up to 80% of 

projects costs are eligible for LIFTS funding; 

applications from only private sector entities 

may be funded for up to 50% of the project 

costs. Funds may be used on private facilities 

and infrastructure, though these applicants 

must clearly describe how the investment will 

positively affect the public and overall freight 

transportation system.

Notable Practice Highlights

► Iowa DOT programmed $7.5 million between fiscal years 2016-2019 to improve 

multimodal connections, construct transloading facilities and rail access points, 

and improve other freight infrastructure. 

► LIFTS competitive grant program for local agencies and private sector partners, 

using National Highway Freight Program funds targets projects that are often 

ineligible for other funding sources.

► Iowa DOT learns more about local freight needs through the grant application 

process, helping identify trends across the State. 

► Similar programs in other States provide grants for local highways, multimodal 

facilities, and target freight performance improvements on local and rural 

highways.

Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com
102 Notable Practices Case Studies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Projects submitted for consideration are 

evaluated by Iowa DOT based on five factors:

● Freight Mobility Benefits (25%): 

eliminates an impediment to freight 

mobility, and improves efficiency, 

reliability, or resiliency of the freight 

network 

● Economic Benefits (25%): potential to 

create or retain jobs, or cost savings to 

shippers and consumers 

● Public Benefits (20%): project benefits 

to other users of the transportation 

system, including safety, quality of life, 

or environmental benefits

● Project Readiness (20%): evaluation 

of how prepared the project is to begin 

and expected project timeline 

● Innovative Approach (10%): use of new 

technology, construction methods, or 

other creative project approaches

Outcomes and Results

LIFTS grants invested more than $7.5 million 

in multimodal freight infrastructure between 

fiscal years 2016-2020. Applications 

regularly exceed available funding by several 

million dollars, showing a sustained demand 

for the grant funds. 

Successful applicants so far have used LIFTS 

grants to construct and preserve sections 

of rail tracks, and to develop new storage 

facilities.

Figure 71: Proposed Site Plan of the Burlington Junction Railway’s 

Transloading Facility, Awarded a LIFTS Grant in 2019

Source: Iowa DOT LIFTS awards announcement
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 103

These local infrastructure investments 

have a strong potential to make impacts 

in the movement of agricultural goods. For 

example, in 2019 LIFTS awarded funding to 

the City of Mt. Pleasant in southeastern Iowa 

to construct a transloading facility connecting 

the highway network with the Burlington 

Junction Railway. This project creates a new 

local truck to rail connection for shippers (Figure 71). Transloading facilities allow bulk 

freight such as grains to transfer from truck 

to rail more efficiently, which can result in a 

lower cost transportation option for longer 

distance trips.

Additional State Led Freight 

Programs 

Iowa DOT is not alone in using NHFP funds 

to create local infrastructure grant programs. 

While each has its own goals, selection 

criteria, and funding structures, several 

State DOTs have recognized the need to 

fund freight infrastructure at the local levels. 

Additional examples include: 

Caltrans Trade Corridor Enhancement 

Program: Caltrans funds projects designed 

to move freight more efficiently on corridors 

with high volumes of freight to enhance 

the State’s economy and support trade. 

The program’s grants fund projects which 

increase the use of on-dock rail, improve 

safety by eliminating at-grade rail crossings, 

reduce impacts to surrounding communities, 

reduce border wait times, and increase rail 

capacity with double tracking, as well as 

other multimodal freight enhancements. The 

program provides access to $515 million 

Federal funds and $300 million annually in 

State funds are available through the grants. 

Minnesota DOT’s Highway Freight Program:

This grant program aims to meet the needs 

of the State’s freight transportation system at 

a more local level with the goal of improving 

safety, mobility, and first and last mile 

connections. Unlike Iowa’s program, this 

grant allows for improvements on local roads 

and highways. Intermodal projects are also 

eligible. 

Illinois DOT’s Competitive Freight Grant 

Program: A State program providing up to 

$225 million dollars over 4 years (fiscal 

years 2019-22) to local departments of 

transportation to help implement the 

strategies and recommendations in the 

Illinois State Freight Plan in their area. In 

particular, the State lists projects aimed at 

reducing truck bottlenecks, improving freightrelated safety on the highway, increasing 

intermodal accessibility to freight corridors, 

and using technology to enhance efficiency 

as priorities.
4 - Case Study

Prioritizing Freight Projects with 

Data-Driven Methods and Tools

Overview

The Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) prioritizes 

statewide highway freight funds using a data-driven process 

and relatively simple, agency-developed tool. The Value, 

Condition, and Performance (VCAP) matrix combines multiple 

existing freight datasets and models to identify and prioritize 

areas of the highway network with freight mobility challenges 

for improvement. Additionally, the process of using the VCAP 

matrix allows a range of stakeholders to provide input on 

which projects should be funded based on their local priorities, 

helping to build consensus for a program of highway freight 

projects. 

Iowa is an intensely agricultural State, so general freight 

planning is, in effect, also agricultural freight planning. While 

the VCAP prioritization process does not explicitly include 

considerations for agricultural freight, the VCAP matrix 

method is flexible enough that industry-specific data and 

considerations could be added if desired. 

Implementing Agency

Iowa Department of Transportation 

Focus Area

Prioritization | Freight Bottlenecks

Local Contact

Samuel Hiscocks 

Freight Planning Coordinator, 

Iowa Department of Transportation 

Samuel.Hiscocks@iowadot.us

515-239-1004
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 105

Notable Practice Highlights

► Developed a matrix-based tool to measure expected performance and condition 

benefits of prospective highway freight projects.

► Local governments and stakeholders help to determine an initial list of projects for 

scoring in the matrix tool by completing an annual freight survey. 

► Iowa DOT uses the matrix’s data-driven outputs to prioritize highway freight 

investments under the National Highway Freight Program.

Implementation Approach

The VCAP process starts with identifying 

locations with freight mobility issues 

across the State to populate an initial list 

of potential projects. Iowa DOT identifies 

bottleneck locations with frequent congestion 

using both INRIX’s Bottleneck Ranking tool

and the results of Iowa DOT freight mobility 

issue surveys to populate a list of candidate 

locations. Candidate locations must have 

at least a 30% share of truck traffic or more 

than 5,000 total trucks per day. Iowa DOT’s 

Freight Advisory Council, Iowa DOT district 

offices, Metropolitan Planning Organizations 

(MPOs), and Regional Planning Affiliations 

(RPAs) are also asked to suggest potential 

projects based on their knowledge of specific 

industry needs and local contexts. 

After the initial bottlenecks list is created, 

each project is then evaluated in the VCAP 

matrix tool (Figure 72). The individual 

datasets and models described below are 

used to characterize each project’s potential 

to impact and value to the overall freight 

system and the highway’s current condition 

and performance:

● Value: Leveraging data from the Iowa 

Travel Analysis Model (iTRAM), each 

project is given a rating based on the 

expected value it provides toward 

improving the efficiency of the overall 

network;

● Condition: Based on data from 

Iowa DOT’s Infrastructure Condition 

Evaluation (ICE) tool, each project is 

given a rating based on a composite of 

seven different physical condition and 

traffic ratings; and

● Performance: Using INRIX’s 

Bottlenecks Ranking tool and data 

describing annual occurenes of 

congestion, each project is given a 

score. 

Projects are scored and ranked in each of the 

three categories, and an overall VCAP score 

is calculated based on the average of of 

three subcomponents. The final VCAP score 

is used to prioritize the overall program of 

improvements. Truck traffic counts provided 

by Iowa DOT traffic data are used to break 

any ties that occur. The prioritized program of 

freight improvements is then included in the 

5 year constrained investment list included 

in both the Iowa State Freight Plan and 

the Statewide Transportation Improvement 

Program (STIP).

Outcomes and Results

Iowa DOT’s first State Freight Plan was 

released in 2017 and includes a robust 

overview of the highway network from a 

freight transportation standpoint. VCAP was 

used to both identify highway bottlenecks 

and to develop a fiscally-constrained freight 

investment plan describing how Iowa will 

invest its $13-to-$15 million in annual NHFP 

funding. 

District-by-district maps of the VCAP priority 

projects were developed and used to conduct 

further stakeholder analysis at the local 

level. Iowa DOT asked local officials, industry 

leaders, and members of the public to 

provide comments on the prioritized projects 

for their area, leading to additional nuance 

and understanding for Iowa DOT while 

implementing the work. This process also 

helped explain to local stakeholders why Iowa 

DOT decided to fund certain projects over 

others and helped create local and regional 

consensus on the State’s planned NHFPfunded investments to improve the freight 

network.
106 Notable Practices Case Studies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Figure 72: Example VCAP matrix

Value Condition Performance Tie

Map ID

Location

iTRAM

"V" rank

ICE

"C" rank

INRIX

"P" rank

Average 

ranking

Truck volume

Priority 

rank 

48 I-80/29 N/S through Council Bluffs 60.79 32 52.82 2 374 16 16.67 13579 1*

47 U.S.151 N/S @ Maquoketa Dr 53.29 38 57.36 6 1040 6 16.67 2115 2

87 I-74 @ Mississippi River 90.95 23 65.53 23 706 9 18.33 2908 3*

57 I-35/80 N/S, E/W@ Iowa 141 49.26 43 61.17 13 2036 2 19.33 12761 4

76 I-380 N/S through Cedar Rapids 76.37 26 55.34 4 123 33 21.00 7226 5

5 U.S. 30 E/W through Missouri Valley 21.80 58 54.31 3 1563 4 21.67 993 6

79

I-380 N/S @ I-80/exit 0 and I-80 E/W @

I-380/exit 239 146.63 10 73.35 47 250 24 27.00 11161 7*

15

I-35 N/S @ U.S. 20/exit 142

and U.S. 20 E/W @ I-35/exit 153 114.43 17 73.91 51 420 14 27.33 5559 8

55 I-35/80 N/S @ Douglas Ave 52.83 41 59.84 11 116 34 28.67 12884 9

66

Iowa 160 E/W @ I-35 and I-35 N/S @ 

Iowa 160/exit 90 108.67 18 69.29 36 114 35 29.67 8331 10

11 U.S. 30 E/W @ U.S. 59/Iowa 141 60.33 33 70.81 41 387 15 29.67 1377 11

84

U.S. 61 N/S @ I-80/exit 123 and 

I-80 E @ U.S. 61/Brady St/exit 295 53.65 36 69.57 37 368 17 30.00 11230 12

51

I-80/I-35/I-235 N/S,E/W

@ southwest mixmaster 92.24 22 73.83 50 365 18 30.00 6870 13

71

I-380/U.S. 218 N/S from

San Marnan Dr to W Ninth St 12.87 61 66.45 27 1764 3 30.33 2799 14

46 U.S. 20 E/W@ Iowa 946 55.22 35 58.80 8 79 48 30.33 2212 15

27

Iowa 14 N/S from Marshalltown north 

city limits to Iowa 330 11.10 63 62.08 17 576 12 30.67 542 16

17

I-35 N/S @ U.S. 30/exit 111 and U.S. 30

E/W @ I-35/exit 151 131.58 13 77.55 61 336 19 31.00 7633 17

* These three high priority locations are included in the freight investment plan in section 9.3, Freight investment plan.

Source: Iowa DOT Freight Advisory Committee documentation
5 - Case Study

Collaborative Freight Project 

Identification and Prioritization

Overview

The St. Louis Regional Freightway (the Freightway) has 

established a record of fostering strong, results-oriented 

stakeholder collaboration to prioritize regional freight 

investments. Working with local industry leaders, elected 

officials, shipping companies, the Illinois and Missouri 

economic development agencies, and others, the agency 

prioritizes and deliver regional freight investments to optimize 

the efficiency of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area’s freightbased economy. The stakeholder engagement model utilized 

by the Freightway has resulted in significant infrastructure 

investment—sometimes in unexpected places—and attracted 

additional State, local, and Federal investment in regional 

infrastructure. 

The Freightway was formed in 2015 as a regional freight 

district and comprehensive authority for freight operations and 

opportunities within the eight counties in Illinois and Missouri 

that comprise the St. Louis metropolitan area. An enterprise 

of Bi-State Development, a regional economic development 

corporation, the Freightway’s mission is to help the St. Louis 

region enhance its freight economy through stakeholder 

collaboration and identifying priority upgrades for regional 

freight infrastructure. 

The region’s success in prioritizing and investing in freight is 

particularly notable for the agricultural freight industry. The 

St. Louis region is an important regional hub for agricultural 

commodities, particularly grains and oilseeds trucked from 

farms across the Midwest and transferred to river barges or 

railways, many bound for export. This region has the highest 

level of barge handling capacity for grain anywhere along the 

Mississippi River.

Implementing Agency

St. Louis Regional Freightway 

Focus Area

Stakeholder Collaboration | Prioritization

Local Contact

Mary C. Lamie, P.E.

Executive Director, St. Louis Regional 

Freightway 

MCLamie@TheFreightway.com

314-982-1562
108 Notable Practices Case Studies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Notable Practice Highlights

► Industry and transportation agency partnership to identify and communicate most 

important regional freight investment needs.

► Created a list of 20 high-priority freight projects, which has a strong impact on 

project selection, programming, and grant success.

► Developed collaborative relationships and regional consensus that enables the 

region to speak with one voice about the importance of freight investments to 

economic competitiveness.

Implementation Approach

One of the Freightway’s first efforts as an 

organization was to develop a prioritized 

list of freight roads, bridges, and other 

multimodal infrastructure that most needed 

investment to enhance the region’s freight 

competitiveness (Figure 73). The agency 

interviewed local industry leaders, freight 

carriers, and other private entities in the 

region, asking them to identify which 

infrastructure improvements would most 

directly help them improve their business 

operations. Ultimately, the Freightway’s 

Freight Development and Needs Analysis 

Committee, comprised of public and private 

freight stakeholders representing the region 

and two States (Missouri and Illinois), 

developed criteria to analyze prospective 

projects’ ability to lower freight transportation 

costs and optimize the freight network. The 

committee uses these criteria to narrow 

the initial list of 120 projects identified by 

stakeholders to 20 high-priority projects

annually. 

The Freightway develops and shares 

fact sheets to communicate anticipated 

project outcomes for each of the 20 highpriority projects. These outcomes include 

benefits to the regional economy, gains in 

supply chain efficiency, and enhancing the 

competitiveness of local industries that 

depend on freight. The fact sheets also 

describe the way each project satisfies the 

vetting criteria, possible funding sources 

and associated match requirements, a 

proposed project schedule, and testimonials 

from industry users detailing why the project 

is necessary. The Freightway shares the 

fact sheets with the Missouri and Illinois 

Departments of Transportation, local, 

regional, and State elected officials, and 

other stakeholders to foster a greater 

understanding of freight’s contributions to 

economic development and inform project 

selection and programming. 

Helping the leaders of regional industry 

communicate their needs to transportation 

decision-makers fosters a collective 

awareness of which specific projects 

would benefit the region’s economic 

competitiveness, and informs a unified vision 

of the St. Louis region’s future economic 

goals and opportunities related to freight.

Outcomes and Results

Ultimately, the Freightway was able to 

develop and build consensus—uniting local 

and regional governments, Class I railroads, 

port and barge industries, shippers and other 

stakeholders in regional freight—around the 

20 high-priority projects. Decision-makers 

from both Illinois and Missouri supported 

the regional infrastructure priority list on the 

strength of its unanimous regional approval. 

The list helped decision-makers understand 

the regional and national importance of the 

high-priority projects.

More than $1 billion of public and private 

funding is being invested in the region’s 

multimodal freight infrastructure. For 

example, both Missouri and Illinois DOT’s 

multi-year programs include over $500 

million for the replacement of the four-lane 

Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi 

River with one that can accommodate six 

lanes and reconstruct more than 10 miles 

of Interstate 270. Additionally, the Terminal 
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 109

Railroad Association (TRRA) of St. Louis is 

investing $222 million—along with a $21.5 

million Federal Railroad Administration 

Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety 

Improvements grant—to replace the 129-

year old Merchant’s Bridge. Spanning the 

Mississippi River and used by six Class I 

railroads and Amtrak, the bridge is critical 

to maintaining the region’s economic 

competitiveness. The Freightway made 

replacing the bridge its top infrastructure 

priority, given estimates that the bridge 

would be out of service in less than 10 years 

without action. Six additional infrastructure 

projects in the region collectively received 

nearly $18.7 million in funding in 2018 

through an Illinois DOT statewide program 

that funds local freight mobility projects, the 

Illinois Competitive Freight Program. 

The Freightway is also forging partnerships 

with coastal ports to move more goods along 

the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico 

to the Midwest using containers on barges 

and to create a new rail connection to the 

Port of Savannah. These initiatives seek to 

meet projected increased freight demand, 

reduce roadway congestion, and reduce the 

number of fatal roadway crashes involving 

trucks. Because the highways in and around 

the St. Louis region are critical to moving 

and exporting Midwestern grain, these 

partnerships and initiatives may provide 

significant benefits to the agricultural freight 

industry. The efforts should reduce trucking 

congestion on routes, as well as expand 

regional options for exporting agricultural 

commodities. 

Finally, the Freightway plans to help 

encourage regional approaches to collecting 

and analyzing freight data to better identify 

supply chain bottlenecks and opportunities 

to mitigate them. These activities are 

expected to help the St. Louis Metropolitan 

Area continue to enhance and expand its role 

as a freight leader. 

Figure 73: Photo of St. Louis and the Mississippi River Showing River, Port, and Rail Freight Activity

Credit: The St. Louis Regional Freightway
6 - Case Study

State Freight Advisory 

Committees 

Overview

At least 35 State Departments of Transportation (State DOTs) 

convene Freight Advisory Committees (FACs). These These 

groups consist of public and private freight stakeholders, 

who help their respective State DOTs identify freight needs 

and prioritize freight projects. FAC members leverage their 

experience managing local or regional transportation systems 

or private sector freight shippers, carriers, and consumers. 

This combination of public and private sector freight 

knowledge is important for understanding which investments 

are likely to have the most significant impact on freight 

performance. 

While many States primarily engage their FACs during the 

development of their State Freight Plan, others ask committee 

members to take a larger role in the freight planning 

and project delivery processes. The Texas Department of 

Transportation (TxDOT) is one such agency (Figure 74). 

The Texas Freight Advisory Committee (TxFAC) not only 

provides input during the development of the 2018 Texas 

Freight Mobility Plan, but members of TxFAC also serve as 

implementation liaisons for the plan, helping to put specific 

strategies into action. In this way, TxDOT has made members 

of TxFAC champions of the plan, helping to broaden and 

expand partnerships. TxDOT attributes the success of these 

partnerships to continued and meaningful coordination with 

both the private industry and their public sector partners.

Implementing Agency

Texas Department of Transportation 

Focus Area

Stakeholder Engagement | Freight Planning

Local Contact

Sherry Pifer 

Branch Manager, Texas Department of 

Transportation Freight and International 

Trade Section 

Sherry.Pifer@txdot.gov

512-936-0928
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Notable Practices Case Studies 111

Notable Practice Highlights

► Texas DOT hosts a Freight Advisory Committee (FAC) of public and private freight 

practitioners who advise the agency on freight needs throughout the State. 

► Examples of FAC roles include advising regional planning initiatives and helping 

inform statewide freight design guidelines via practical experience. 

► The FAC brings a wealth of “on-the-ground” freight perspectives that are not 

captured in common statewide freight data sets and analyses. 

► TxDOT staff foster the development of the committee by making a conscious effort 

to involve committee members in decision-making and inviting them to participate 

in a variety of meetings and events.

Implementation Approach

Twenty-four representatives from major 

trucking companies, rail providers, port 

authorities, county and regional freight 

officials, and others from the state’s freight 

industry make up TxFAC’s membership. 

Agricultural interests are included in the 

committee’s roster, including the Texas Farm 

Bureau. 

TxFAC’s involvement in the freight planning 

process is unique relative to other State 

advisory bodies in that it plays a role in each 

step of the process. From setting statewide 

freight goals and strategies, to prioritizing 

projects, and implementing strategic goals 

and initiatives, this advisory committee plays 

a role. During the group’s first meeting with 

TxDOT in 2013, TxFAC worked to determine 

its own mission, goals, and objectives, 

including its charge to advise TxDOT on 

freight issues, projects, priorities, and to help 

champion freight as an important driver of 

the Texas economy. Involving members of 

TxFAC in the development of this founding 

document helped to create a sense of shared 

responsibility among the membership. It also 

set an expectation that the advisory group 

would be key players in freight decisionmaking in the State of Texas. 

TxDOT also involves TxFAC members in the 

implementation of the Texas Freight Mobility 

Plan, asking TxFAC members to serve as 

liaisons to each of the plan implementation 

efforts, allowing them to apply their 

specific knowledge of the freight industry 

in an advisory role. Examples of these 

implementation activities include: 

● Developing Freight Infrastructure 

Design Considerations. This 

forthcoming report will assess 

the current design practices for 

infrastructure components on the 

Texas Multimodal Freight Network in 

relation to freight vehicles. The report 

will help TxDOT understand whether 

it should update statewide road and 

bridge design standard to better 

accommodate modern freight flows, 

and to prepare the State for near-term 

and future technological innovations in 

goods movements. 

● Completing a Statewide Truck 

Parking Study. This study identifies 

truck parking needs with practical, 

innovative, and cost-effective 

strategies developed in coordination 

with the private sector. These facilities 

are key for a variety of reasons, 

including helping truckers meet 

Federal Hours of Service requirements 

and reducing fatigue-related crashes. 

TxDOT staff plans to directly engage 

TxFAC and other private sector 

stakeholders to implement the 

recommendations of the Truck Parking 

Study.

● Conducting a Permian Basin 

Regional Freight and Energy Sector 

Transportation Plan. This regional 

plan, still under development at the 

time of this report, is an example of 
112 Notable Practices Case Studies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Figure 74: The Texas Freight Advisory Committee Logo

Credit: Texas Department of Transportation

an industry-specific freight study. The 

plan will examine freight activities, 

opportunities, challenges, and 

strategies in the energy-rich western 

Texas region. The large increase in 

shale production in the Basin has 

led to a substantial increase in truck 

volumes in the State. This plan will 

describe strategies that TxDOT and its 

local transportation agency partners 

plan to undertake to ensure the 

efficient movement of goods through 

the region. 

TxFAC members appointed to serve as 

liaisons to these efforts reviewed the 

analysis and draft reports to provide 

technical feedback and ‘on-the-ground’ 

perspectives in each report topic area. 

Additionally, TxFAC representatives advising 

each project were able to provide local 

credibility and connections to additional 

stakeholders, allowing the work products 

to better reflect the realities of freight 

transportation in localities throughout the 

State.

TxDOT’s freight staff engages TxFAC 

throughout the year about ongoing policy and 

freight planning matters. Staff convene TxFAC 

two to four times per year to provide updates 

on current and upcoming freight initiatives 

at the State level, and to gather TxFAC 

feedback to these initiatives. TxDOT staff 

travelling across the State for freight studies, 

committee meetings, and other official action 

alert individual TxFAC members that they will 

be in the area and often invite them to take 

part in meetings. This regular interaction 

helps to foster a strong relationship among 

the group, and to keep an open line of 

communication among the State DOT and 

their local government and private sector 

partners.

Outcomes and Results

The relationships TxDOT has forged through 

TxFAC continue to make an impact on freight 

project prioritization and decision-making. 

From TxFAC’s members, the State DOT is 

able to draw valuable observations from the 

expertise and insights of daily users of the 

highway freight network that it otherwise 

might miss. The human and business 

perspectives brought by its members help 

TxFAC advise statewide freight planners and 

create a deeper understanding of the State’s 

freight network. TxDOT believes that its State 

Freight Plan implementation efforts are of 

higher quality because of these insights and 

committee participation.

Through consistent partnership and 

interaction with TxFAC membership, TxDOT 

has created a group of private sector and 

local champions for its freight initiatives. 

Individual members of the group are 

knowledgeable about the State DOT’s freight 

goals and decision-making process, and 

are able to help inform their professional 

networks and peers about these efforts, 

helping to build a greater understanding 

at local and regional levels of freight’s role 

in the transportation system and State 

economy.
SECTION 7

Challenges, 

Opportunities, and 

Potential Strategies
114 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies

Agricultural highway freight is a complex system, influenced by many different factors and stakeholders. As discussed in Section 2, a highperforming highway freight system is a critical part of the economic competitiveness of the agriculture industry. In order to maintain or improve 

the agricultural highway freight system, many different types of stakeholders, from State DOTs to Federal agencies to private shippers and 

carriers, must identify existing challenges and opportunities, and act upon them, which often may require working together.

This section synthesizes findings from the research and analysis presented in this report. It outlines several topics that the project team 

identifies as challenges or opportunities for agricultural highway freight movement, and suggests potential strategies to address them, drawn 

from case studies, research, and stakeholder feedback.

The challenges and opportunities discussed in this section include:

Agricultural Freight Data

1. Improving Data on Agricultural 

Freight Movements

2. Understanding and 

Communicating Seasonal Effects 

on Demand and Performance

3. Improving and Standardizing 

Freight Data and Analysis Tools

Freight Planning and Analysis

4. Enhancing Corridor Analyses 

to Identify Agricultural Freight 

Performance Challenges

5. Accessing Local and Industry 

Knowledge to Inform 

Infrastructure Planning

6. Analyzing Performance in 

the Context of National and 

International Supply Chains

7. Identifying Redundant Routes to 

Avoid Disruptions

Project Identification and 

Prioritization

8. Addressing County and Local 

Infrastructure Condition

9. Optimizing Highway Investment 

Decision-Making to Benefit 

Freight Supply Chains

10. Cooperating Across Jurisdictions 

in Planning and Project 

Development
Agricultural Highway Freight Stakeholders and Key Roles

State DOTs and Local Transportation Agencies

● Plan, build, operate, and maintain major highways

● Program Federal, State, and local funds

● Engage agriculture shippers and carriers in freight planning and project 

identification

● Cooperate and communicate with each other and other modal 

stakeholders to address performance of agricultural supply chain

Federal Agencies 

● Support State DOTs and local transportation agencies by administering 

Federal funding, and providing technical assistance

● Provide research, data, and guidance on agricultural freight planning and 

analysis methods

Agriculture Shippers and Carriers 

● Participate in highway planning and decision-making processes at 

Federal, State, and local levels

● Collect and share data about agricultural freight movements to inform 

infrastructure planning and research

● Contribute to a body of knowledge on agricultural freight practices, 

issues, and opportunities

Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com

The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 115
Agricultural Freight Data

Section 4 and Appendix B of this report present detailed data on agricultural 

highway freight commodity movements and the performance of selected analysis 

corridors. The project team combined multiple datasets in a novel way to illustrate 

how highway performance may affect the movement of agricultural commodities at 

locations along these major corridors. These illustrations may provide transportation 

agencies with insights help them make improvements in the future. With the 

exception of the Transearch database, all data sources used in this report are 

available to State and Federal transportation agencies through existing programs 

and agreements. Transearch data are proprietary and licenses can be purchased for 

a fee.

However, the analysis was limited in several ways, including a lack of certain types 

of data, granularity of data, or challenges in combining datasets needed to analyze 

agricultural highway freight. Similarly, stakeholders interviewed as part of this 

research universally identified data challenges as a top issue.

Freight data issues are particularly challenging for State DOTs and local 

transportation agencies, which often rely on data and modeling to identify 

performance challenges and prioritize projects competing for limited resources. If 

freight data or understanding of freight issues is lacking, this may disadvantage 

freight projects. Freight data issues may not be easily solved because of concerns 

about sharing proprietary data, or the cost and effort needed to improve data 

collection or standardization.

The challenges and opportunities discussed in this section include:

1. Improving Data on Agricultural Freight Movements

2. Understanding and Communicating Seasonal Effects on Demand and 

Performance

3. Improving and Standardizing Freight Data and Analysis Tools

Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com

116 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 117

1 Improving data on 

agricultural freight 

movements

Data describing movements of agriculture freight commodities for lower functional 

classification roads (e.g., local roads, collectors, rural arterials) are not typically available. 

Agricultural commodity data are also not granular enough to support local-scale analysis. 

The most consistently published, highest quality sources report at the county level, with 

movements modeled based on county-to-county flows, making it impossible to use these 

sources for county-scale analyses.

Condition and performance data are also not consistently available for all highways necessary 

to the agriculture industry. For example, the National Performance Management Research 

Data Set (NPMRDS) dataset covers only the National Highway System (NHS). Lower functional 

class roadway segments—some of which appear in the High-Volume Domestic Agriculture 

Highways (HDAH)—are not included in NPMRDS. However, congestion and reliability data may 

be available from data providers for some non-NHS routes.

Ideally, transportation planners would be able to follow agricultural commodity flow data 

through a full multimodal journey, but data about intermodal transfers, rail movements, and 

processing centers are not available in a way that enables this.

These data limitations make it difficult for transportation agencies to identify agricultural 

highway freight patterns for intra-county movements or for non-NHS highways. If commodities 

are processed or transferred to another mode within the same county in which they are 

produced, they do not appear in Transearch or other county-level commodity movement 

datasets. As a result, key highways used to transport commodities over shorter distances 

may not be identified in freight planning processes. The lack of performance data for nonNHS routes may lead transportation agencies to overlook important performance challenges 

that affect agricultural freight. Although stakeholders often mention intermodal transfers as 

particular pain points, a lack of available data on the performance of these critical junctions 

makes it difficult to incorporate into freight planning.
118 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

1 Improving data 

on agricultural 

freight movements 

(continued)

Strategies:

► State DOTs, local transportation agencies, agricultural shippers and carriers could work 

together to pilot new ways of collecting and sharing data to capture the full journey 

from farm to market, with a particular emphasis on the initial journey from the farm to 

elevators, storage, or other aggregation points.

► If there are concerns about sharing proprietary data with public agencies, Federal 

agencies, State DOTs, and agricultural shippers and carriers could explore establishing 

a secure data commons,10 which would provide access to data for planning and 

research purposes, but protect these data from unauthorized disclosure or public 

release.

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies could explore supplementing NPMRDS 

data with additional data for non-NHS routes or installing equipment to measure truck 

volumes on farm-to-market routes or highway linkages to intermodal transfer locations.

► Federal agencies can support State and local efforts to improve agricultural freight 

data with research and technical assistance, and also work to improve national 

datasets.

10 U.S. DOT Secure Data Commons is an example of this type of system.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 119

2 Understanding and 

communicating 

seasonal effects 

on demand and 

performance

Demand for agricultural freight transportation is seasonal, with the highest volumes for 

individual commodities often occurring at harvest time or periods of particularly high 

consumer demand. Agricultural shippers describe peak periods of several weeks for some 

commodities, during which the majority of a harvest may be shipped. Data about shipments 

of some agricultural commodities are published on a weekly or monthly basis by USDA and 

others. However, these data are typically summarized at a State or regional level and not 

translated into seasonal highway commodity flows. 

In addition, many highway planning practices are based primarily on passenger travel 

patterns, which exhibit less seasonal variation than agricultural freight. State DOTs and local 

transportation agencies tend to analyze highway performance in terms of annual averages 

(i.e., average annual daily traffic, average delay). Planning to meet passenger travel demand 

often considers peak daily commuting periods. However, State DOTs interviewed for this 

research typically do not plan for seasonal peaks in agricultural freight demand. One reason 

for this is that commodity flow data about the seasonality of agricultural truck trips are 

typically not available in formats suitable for transportation planning.

Strategies:

► Shippers and carriers can work to make information about seasonal peaks in 

agricultural freight demand more available to State DOTs and local transportation 

agencies. Working to provide forecasts of expected harvest volumes, likely 

transportation routes, and peak seasonal timeframes can help inform infrastructure 

planning and project prioritization.

► Federal and State DOTs and local transportation agencies can work with shippers and 

carriers to communicate their data needs in order to better consider the seasonal 

natural of agricultural freight demand in freight planning and modeling.

► Federal agencies can work to improve seasonal data about agricultural freight by 

coordinating data improvement efforts, promoting notable practices, and providing 

technical assistance.
120 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

3 Improving and 

standardizing freight 

data and analysis tools

Freight planning methods, data, and tools vary from State to State. One of the U.S. 

transportation system’s greatest strengths is that State DOTs innovate and create customized 

approaches that meet their needs. However, because agricultural freight is multimodal, and 

because so much freight crosses State boundaries, this variation can be limiting for national 

and multi-State analyses.

In many cases, the most important link in an agricultural supply chain may not be in the State 

where the products are grown, but in neighboring or distant States. However, because State 

DOTs have varying funding, geospatial network standards, and access to detailed freight 

data, it is difficult to analyze freight across State boundaries. The more that freight data and 

analysis methods can be standardized, the more likely that these barriers can be reduced and 

that freight highway infrastructure projects of the greatest significance can be identified and 

prioritized.

Strategies:

► Federal agencies can continue to improve national freight and highway performance 

datasets with a goal of supporting State and local freight planning.

► Federal agencies could also consider working with State DOTs to encourage greater 

consistency in how State data are reported and aggregated, such as HPMS highway 

condition and use data, geospatial network features, and the location and details of 

planned freight projects.

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies can form bi- or multi-State corridor 

partnerships that work to standardize freight data and analysis tools across 

jurisdictions (see Collaborative Freight Project Identification and Prioritization case 

study in Section 6).

► Agriculture shippers could work with data providers to improve the accuracy of 

agricultural freight data and routing modeling to be more consistent across the country.
Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com

Freight Planning and Analysis

Freight is a relatively new component of transportation planning, and practices 

continually evolve and improve. Some State DOTs have had freight plans and 

analysis capabilities for decades, while others completed their first State Freight 

Plan within the last 5 years. This report highlights several notable practices in 

freight planning that State DOTs employ, which may be useful as precedents for 

others to learn from or adopt.

Using a corridor analysis approach that combines agricultural commodity flow data 

with performance and condition information is one approach to gaining greater 

insights into agriculture-specific performance and investment priorities. However, 

data analysis alone may not be sufficient to identify all needs. Engaging local and 

industry experts in the planning process can also provide valuable insights (both 

qualitative and quantitative). Furthermore, a better understanding of the national 

and international multimodal supply chains of agriculture products would help 

infrastructure planners address pain points in the complex multimodal networks 

that many agricultural commodities rely on.

Robust freight planning should consider not only current conditions, but a range 

of possible futures, including possible disruptive events, such as extreme weather, 

labor disruptions, or shifts in demand for alternate modes. Investing in redundant 

or alternate freight corridors could make supply chains more resilient to disruptions, 

ensuring food can continue to reach consumers even during trying times.

The challenges and opportunities discussed in this section include:

4. Enhancing Corridor Analyses to Identify Agricultural Freight Performance 

Challenges

5. Accessing Local and Industry Knowledge to Inform Infrastructure Planning

6. Analyzing Performance in the Context of National and International Supply 

Chains

7. Identifying Redundant Routes to Avoid Disruptions

The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 121
122 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

4 Enhancing corridor 

analyses to identify 

agricultural freight 

performance 

challenges

Key to highway freight planning is analyzing agricultural freight movements along highway 

corridors, the condition of infrastructure, and the performance of corridors. By taking an 

industry-specific view of how agricultural freight (or even individual commodities) use a 

corridor, policymakers can gain enhanced understanding to formulate better plans and 

investment strategies. 

This report demonstrates a methodology for identifying corridors important to agricultural 

freight and analyzing the performance of those corridors in terms of congestion, reliability, 

and safety, using national datasets. This methodology could be adapted for use at a State or 

regional scale using the same datasets, or supplemented with local and industry data. In this 

way, State DOTs and local agencies may be able to better identify performance problem areas 

that affect agricultural freight, or specific commodities, and projects to address them. 

Strategies:

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies can analyze corridor performance from 

the perspective of agricultural freight, or individual agriculture commodities

► Shippers and carriers can support corridor analyses by participating in advisory 

committees and providing local or regional data

► Federal agencies could continue or expand access to national datasets used in corridor 

analyses and provide technical assistance.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 123

5 Accessing local and 

industry knowledge to 

inform infrastructure 

planning

The people who often know the most about what is and is not working in a freight supply chain 

are those at the local level, either in State DOT district offices, local governments, or shippers 

and carriers on the ground in a community or region. As described in this report, commodity 

flow and highway performance datasets provide great insights to inform freight planning, but 

they do not paint a complete picture.

Local agriculture industry stakeholders can provide information about freight demand, routes, 

and pain points that may not be available in national or regional datasets. Similarly, local 

governments and transportation agencies understand best the condition and performance 

of local roads and bridges. Ensuring that freight infrastructure planning practices incorporate 

these local and industry voices can help bridge data gaps and identify projects which will 

have a significant impact on local and regional agriculture highway freight networks (see 

State Freight Advisory Committees case-study in Section 6). One challenge is assessing the 

adequacy of driver support systems such as truck parking areas, rest rooms and showers, 

along key routes. State DOTs have taken great strides in making information about parking 

available. However, including carriers and drivers in corridor planning efforts can provide 

information about the challenges drivers face and the investments that are most needed. 

Strategies:

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies can include local agriculture industry 

stakeholders in advisory committees, task forces, corridor studies, and other freight 

planning efforts.

► Shippers and carriers can supplement State and national datasets with information 

about the impacts of highway performance issues on their operations and the support 

systems drivers need to keep agriculture freight moving efficiently and safely.

► Federal agencies can research and highlight effective practices for incorporating local 

data into freight planning.
124 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

6 Analyzing performance 

in the context 

of national and 

international supply 

chains

This report focuses on domestic agricultural highway freight transportation. However, because 

the market for agriculture is global, and many agricultural freight trips are multimodal, this 

limited scope cannot capture the full scale of agricultural freight transportation. It is also 

necessary to consider that many agricultural products are processed prior to consumption 

or export, but tracking the numerous products that incorporate agricultural commodities is 

beyond the scope of this study.

To gain a more complete understanding of agricultural freight performance and infrastructure 

needs, a multimodal approach that considers the full supply chain would be beneficial. Some 

State DOTs have developed supply chain maps for key agricultural commodities in their 

State. Efforts to expand these analyses at a multi-State or national scale, and incorporating 

important processed commodities could provide a more complete picture of where 

infrastructure investments will have the greatest impact. 

Strategies:

► Federal agencies could work with State DOTs, shippers, carriers, exporters, and 

agriculture shippers and processers to develop more complete maps of agriculture 

supply chains for key commodities at a multi-State or national scale.

► Federal agencies could support research and data analysis into agriculture supply 

chains that would provide useful transportation planning value to State DOTs and local 

transportation agencies.

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies could participate in efforts to improve 

information about agriculture supply chains, providing data and local knowledge.

► Agriculture shippers, carriers, and exporters would play a role in helping identify how 

agriculture commodities move across multiple modes, where they are stored and 

processed, and which processed products are most commonly developed from them.
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 125

7 Identifying redundant 

routes to avoid 

disruptions

Disruptions to freight transportation systems have economic and societal consequences. If 

farmers cannot deliver their products to market in a timely and cost-efficient manner, not only 

do profits suffer, but consumers may experience higher prices or shortages. Disruptions may 

take many forms, such as major events like the flooding in many Midwestern States in 2019 

(which destroyed crops), and the Covid-19 public health emergency in 2020 (which disrupted 

supply chains), and more routine events like bridge closures and major highway construction.

To ensure that important commodities such as agriculture can continue to move during times 

of disruption, freight planning should consider not only the current dominant freight flows, but 

also redundant or alternate routes, which will result in a more resilient freight network. Some 

States which commonly experience extreme weather events are already including network 

resiliency in their State Freight Plans (see Advanced Freight Networks and Data Systems casestudy in Section 6). 

Strategies:

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies can identify redundant or alternate 

routes that might be needed to keep agricultural freight moving during times of 

disruption and consider these impacts in project prioritization processes.

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies can work with carriers to explore 

the potential of new rail or waterway connections that could increase destinations 

accessible by non-highway modes during emergencies.

► Agriculture shippers and carriers might provide insights into how commodities were 

moved during past disruptions, and the performance of alternate routes or modes for 

the industry.

► Federal agencies can encourage and support the use of scenario planning to identify 

potential disruptions and possible industry responses, which may inform freight 

planning and project development activities.
Project Identification and Prioritization

Ultimately, to maintain and improve the performance of highways for agricultural 

freight, projects must be identified, programmed, and constructed. State DOTs and 

local transportation agencies face many competing interests when deciding which 

projects to pursue. Every industry relies on highways for freight transportation, and 

transportation agencies must balance freight needs with the needs of passengers, 

working within significant funding constraints. There are always urgent needs to be 

addressed and usually not enough resources to advance all worthy projects.

State DOTs and local transportation agencies use a variety of methods to balance 

competing stakeholder needs with funding eligibility criteria and State and local 

laws to determine which projects they will pursue. However, because all highways 

are connected, and because agricultural freight travels throughout the country, all 

project decisions are likely affect freight performance just as they affect impact 

passenger travel. Optimizing highway project investments to best balance the 

needs of all stakeholders is difficult.

Another barrier is that many States divide jurisdiction over highways, funding, and 

responsibility for developing projects and programming funds. Jurisdiction is split 

between the State DOT and numerous local governments based on functional 

classification or other factors. Because agricultural freight relies on major and 

minor highways in both rural and urban areas, many State and local agencies 

must coordinate to meet the needs of agriculture shippers. This system creates 

a complicated landscape, where shippers may not understand which agency 

has authority over which roads, or is responsible for planning and developing 

projects. The potential geographic mismatch of shippers and State DOTs and 

local transportation agencies should also be considered. For example, it is not 

uncommon for shippers to be located in a different county or State than the agency 

responsible for the section of highway that most affects their shipments.

The challenges and opportunities discussed in this section include:

8. Addressing County and Local Infrastructure Condition

9. Optimizing Highway Investment Decision-Making to Benefit Freight Supply 

Chains

10. Cooperating Across Jurisdictions in Planning and Project Development

Credit: vitpho via 123rf.com

126 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 127

8 Addressing county and 

local infrastructure 

condition

Agriculture industry stakeholders often stress that the condition of rural roads and bridges 

is a challenge for the industry. Anecdotes describe bridge closures and weight restrictions 

generating long detours and hampering transportation of farm products to markets. In most 

States, the maintenance and repair of local roads, collectors, and some arterials is the 

responsibility of county governments and local municipalities. State funding formulas may not 

recognize the important role these facilities play in providing farm to market transportation. 

Although data are not consistently available to enable a direct comparison, lower volume rural 

roads may suffer from a lack of investment to modernize them in ways that account for today’s 

farming and freight practices. Some States have invested significant time and resources 

into studying and improving their rural freight networks (see Cross-Department Coordination 

for Improved Agricultural Freight Infrastructure case study in Section 6), but the challenge 

remains in most States. 

The National Highway Freight Program (NHFP) provides a dedicated funding source to State 

DOTs for projects that address freight needs. Some States have used flexibility in the NHFP to 

fund worthy projects at the local level, or to fund improvements to intermodal connections, or 

highway facilities that are not part of the system the State DOT is responsible for (sometimes 

called “off system” facilities). Many county and local roads are not eligible for NHFP funds 

because of project eligibility requirements which require that they be part of the National 

Highway Freight Network, or because State-level rules designate local governments as 

responsible for this infrastructure and expect local funding to pay for their maintenance.

Strategies:

► Local transportation agencies could document the rehabilitation and modernization 

needs of roads and bridges in their jurisdictions that support agricultural freight and 

communicate their importance to funding decision-makers.

► Agricultural freight shippers can help communicate the impacts of bridge closures, 

poor roadway conditions, obsolete designs, or inadequate roadway capacity on their 

operations and shipping costs, to transportation agencies.

► State DOTs can consider using flexibility in Federal and State funding to support 

rehabilitation and modernization of “off system” highways that serve important 

functions in the supply chains for agricultural commodities.

► Federal agencies can help clarify eligibility of Federal funds to support infrastructure 

planning and investment in local and rural highways and bridges that provide access to 

agricultural areas.
128 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

9 Optimizing highway 

investment decisionmaking to benefit 

freight supply chains

Highway Economic Requirements System (HERS)11modeling presented in this report suggests 

that the State Freight Plans (as of December 2019) collectively would yield benefits – 

including avoided crashes, travel time savings, and vehicle operating cost savings – that 

exceed the costs of the investments by a ratio of greater than 2:1. Benefits to trucking 

specifically were estimated at $540 million per year. Findings from the HERS analysis also 

suggested that the then-current set of State Freight Plans may over-invest in projects that 

enhance capacity (particularly for Interstates) as compared with rehabilitating or improving 

the condition of highways (particularly for non-Interstates). However, the complexity of the 

highway system makes this difficult to say with certainty, as the HERS model does not capture 

network effects and is unable to model some project types (e.g., interchanges, intelligent 

transportation systems).

Additional research and modeling to identify optimal project types for network-scale freight 

investment could help State DOTs and local transportation agencies target more efficient 

projects from a freight performance perspective. However, agricultural freight needs would still 

need to be balanced with needs of other highway users.

Benefits-cost analysis (BCA) is a powerful tool for informing project selection and other 

investment decisions. For State DOTs, BCA can be employed to ensure that scarce highway 

funding is targeted to the projects that will yield the greatest return on investment in terms 

of improved safety, reduced delay, and other benefits. However, BCA is typically resourceintensive, requiring detailed data on traffic volumes, travel speeds, safety outcomes, and other 

input parameters, along with modeling techniques to forecast project-level impacts on these 

variables against a baseline. Staffing and expertise is also required to develop appropriate 

monetization factors and to run and interpret the BCA model. Most State DOTs do not routinely 

employ BCA as a standard part of project prioritization, in part due to the resource demands 

noted above, and in part because of a preference for other prioritization methods (Federal 

Highway Administration (FHWA), 2016). 

Freight-related projects may present additional challenges for BCA, as fully quantifying their 

impacts can require data on freight flows that are proprietary or difficult to obtain. Travel 

time reliability benefits, which are a key impact for many freight-related projects, can also 

be more difficult to quantify and monetize, although there is much ongoing research in this 

area. Agricultural freight impacts, in particular, may be influenced by strong but short-lived 

seasonal peaks that are not represented in the available data, such that BCA would tend 

to underestimate those benefits. Some States lean on local knowledge of freight systems 

to make targeted improvements to the network (see State Grant Programs to Enhance 

11 Appendix C includes more details about the HERS model. 
The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies 129

9 Optimizing highway 

investment decision 

making to benefit 

freight supply chains 

(continued)

Multimodal Freight Connectivity and Prioritizing Freight Projects with Data-Driven Methods

and Tools case studies in Section 6), but the challenges of quantifying agriculture- or other 

industry-specific benefits across the entire system remain. 

This report represents a first step in addressing data gaps that affect the ability to include 

agricultural freight impacts in BCA, by providing information on agricultural product flows in 

major corridors alongside reliability and other performance information. Additional research 

and data collection on topics such as seasonal peaks, perishability, and reliability benefits 

would help state DOTs expand their BCAs to include impacts on agricultural freight.

Strategies:

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies can consider training staff in the use 

of modeling tools and BCA to inform project prioritization in State Freight Plans, and 

to optimize their investment mix across project types and functional classes. In some 

cases, this may mean greater investment in pavement preservation over capacity 

expansion, or non-Interstate projects over Interstate projects.

► Federal agencies could research potential enhancements to BCA modeling capabilities 

related to freight projects, including accounting for seasonal peaks in agricultural 

freight demand, and methods for incorporating agricultural commodity flow data into 

BCA.

► Federal agencies could work with State DOTs to improve the project details included 

in State Freight Plans, Statewide Transportation Improvement Programs, and other 

transportation planning and programming documents, to enable more accurate 

modeling of the benefits of highway freight projects.

► Federal agencies and State DOTs could work together to assess the relevance of 

various BCA techniques to freight planning and project prioritization, as well as identify 

technical assistance needed to better employ BCA.Agricultural freight does not stop 
130 Challenges, Opportunities, and Potential Strategies The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

10 Cooperating across 

jurisdictions in 

planning and project 

development

at State or municipal boundaries, but funding and decision-making authority usually 

does. When transportation agencies work together to analyze freight movements, share 

data, and develop joint priorities, they can more clearly communicate needs and focus 

on the projects of greatest significance. Increased cooperation in project identification 

and prioritization, in a region, or along a corridor, can help improve performance for 

commodities that travel through multiple jurisdictions, like agricultural freight often 

does (see Collaborative Freight Project Identification and Prioritization case study in 

Section 6). The analysis presented in this report could provide a starting point for State, 

multi-State, or regional freight corridor analyses or freight plans with an agriculture 

focus.

Strategies:

► State DOTs and local transportation agencies, with agriculture shippers, carriers, and 

processors can form regional or corridor-level coalitions, task forces, or associations to 

focus on agricultural freight needs, then identify priority infrastructure projects that will 

most benefit agricultural supply chains.

► Metropolitan planning organizations, particularly those that include areas of more than 

one State, may be uniquely well-suited to organize regional freight planning efforts.

► Federal agencies may support cross-jurisdictional planning efforts by serving as a 

convener or organizer and providing case-study examples of successful planning efforts 

in other regions.12

12 The FHWA Megaregion Workshops and Regional Models of Cooperation initiative provide examples of crossjurisdictional planning by State DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations.
SECTION 8

Conclusion
Conclusion

The efficient movement of agricultural 

commodities is vital to the continued health, 

prosperity, and economy of the United 

States. The valuable role of highways in 

supporting agriculture was clear in the early 

20th century and was a driving force behind 

the creation of what became a national 

effort to build roads that connect farmers to 

markets. Highways are even more integral 

to agriculture today. Agriculture represents 

the largest share of freight movements on 

our Nation’s highways and the agriculture 

industry relies on the efficient movement of 

agricultural commodities that our excellent 

highway system provides. Highways play a 

role in almost all agricultural freight trips and 

often serve the critical first and last miles of 

multimodal trips, which may also include rail 

and waterways. The highway mode accounts 

for the majority of ton-miles traveled by 

agricultural commodities.

The condition and performance of highway 

infrastructure affect the agriculture industry 

in many ways. Congestion causes delay and 

adds costs to truck trips. Longer trips result 

in higher wage and fuel costs. The condition 

of infrastructure is important as well; poor 

pavement condition increases wear and 

tear on trucks and raises overall operating 

costs for carriers. These costs are typically 

passed along to shippers and may increase 

food costs for consumers. The Nation’s 

transportation system has historically been a 

competitive advantage for the U.S. agriculture 

industry. However, competition from foreign 

producers, fueled in part by increased 

investment in transportation systems in 

those countries, has poorly positioned U.S. 

agriculture to absorb higher transportation 

costs. Maintaining the highways and other 

modes that support U.S. agriculture is critical 

for keeping costs low and staying competitive 

internationally.

Agriculture shippers and carriers use 

highways throughout the country to meet 

their transportation needs, but some 

highways carry much higher volumes 

of agricultural freight than others. The 

analysis of agricultural commodity flows in 

this report reveals that 80% of domestic 

agricultural commodities travel on as little 

as 17% of the highway mileage. These “HighVolume Domestic Agriculture Highways” 

are of particular value to U.S. farmers and 

the agriculture industry. This report also 

uses novel analysis techniques to examine 

the performance of selected high-volume 

corridors, showing how highway condition 

and performance overlap with agricultural 

commodity movements. This research 

provides a potential starting point for State 

and regional-scale analyses focused on 

domestic agricultural freight, and gives a 

sense for where improvements to highway 

performance may have the greatest impacts 

on the agriculture industry. The report also 

provides a methodology State Departments 

of Transportation and local transportation 

agencies can use as a starting point for 

detailed, agriculture-specific corridor 

analyses of their own.

132 Conclusion The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture
Highway freight planning is still a relatively 

young discipline in the United States, but 

State Departments of Transportation are 

increasingly investing in detailed freight 

plans and programming funds for highway 

freight projects. This report analyzes the 

projects included in State Freight Plans as 

of December 2019. Findings show State 

Departments of Transportation planned to 

invest nearly $28 billion in highway freight 

infrastructure projects between 2016 and 

2020. 24% of these projects are located on 

the highways carrying the highest volumes 

of agricultural freight. Using the Federal 

Highway Administration’s Highway Economic 

Requirements System (HERS) model, the 

project team estimated that these types 

of projects would generate $540 million 

in annual truck operating cost savings. 

HERS modeling at investment levels two or 

four times the level planned in the State 

Freight Plans estimates that benefit-cost 

ratios would decline only slightly, suggesting 

many worthy projects that could benefit 

freight transportation exist if funding were 

to increase. While the benefits estimated 

by the HERS modeling would apply to all 

freight, domestic agricultural freight would 

likely experience strong benefits, because 

agriculture is the largest user of highway 

freight.

This report demonstrates the potential for 

industry-specific freight analysis to help 

identify worthwhile projects and to inform 

freight planning. As State Departments of 

Transportation and local transportation 

agencies move forward with updated 

freight plans, corridor studies, and project 

development, this report can support an 

increased emphasis on agricultural freight. 

The report provides six case-study examples 

from State Departments of Transportation 

and regional freight planning organizations 

that have developed notable practices in 

freight planning and programming that 

benefit agricultural freight. These examples 

may provide models for others to consider or 

adapt to their own context.

As the U.S. population continues to grow 

and our economy continues to evolve, 

freight volumes are also forecasted to 

grow by nearly 25% over the next 20 years. 

Continued investment in highways supporting 

the movement of agricultural freight 

during this period of growth will be critical. 

Also critical will be improving information 

about how agricultural highway freight 

interfaces with rail and inland waterway 

modes. This report provides a piece of a 

larger puzzle toward understanding the 

complex multimodal system that moves 

agricultural commodities across the country. 

Partnerships are the most solid answer for 

continuing to build this understanding and 

best positioning the Nation to meet the 

challenge of rising highway freight volumes, 

without sacrificing performance. Agricultural 

freight shippers and carriers can work with 

State Departments of Transportation, local 

transportation agencies, and Federal agency 

partners to improve data access, understand 

supply chains, identify redundant routes, and 

find projects that will have the biggest impact 

on performance.

Credit: Tyler Olson via 123rf.com

The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture Conclusion 133
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The Importance of Highways to U.S. Agriculture

http://dx.doi.org/10.9752/TS295.12-2020