Project Manager: Frank Tabatabaee (FDOT Planning Office)
Principal Investigator: Zhong-Ren Peng (University of Florida)
Graduate Researcher: Haitao Yu (University of Florida)
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) reported that annually, more than 700 million tons of freight move throughout the state. With over 180 million tons of import freight and over 80 million tons of export freight, Florida is the second largest foreign trade zone in the U.S. These goods represent hundreds of billions of dollars in value. Yet, despite these significant flows of goods, the value that freight contributes to Florida’s economy is not well measured by current methods, which are focused at the project level and do not effectively comprehend larger scale impacts. This must be addressed if transportation planners are to understand how investments in Florida’s freight infrastructure will benefit the economy.
The research aims to develop an economic analysis framework that helps FDOT to quantify the economic impacts of freight transportation investment. The model has also be developed to a program for decision making process, which is called the Florida Freight Transport Economic Impact Kit (FTEIK) and is currently available at