United States - European Commission Urban Freight Twinning Initiative: Compendium of Project Summaries, Volume II
Overview of 2018-2019 International Urban Freight Roundtables

Research

Pilot

Other International

Assessing the Impacts of Congestion on Supply Chains in Haiti

Logistics efficiency has a dramatic impact on trade flows both within and among countries. For a number of reasons, countries in Latin America have historically struggled to develop strong logistics industries. Insufficient transportation infrastructure development and poor provision of transport and logistics services in general have hindered strong supply chains. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has developed a methodology to quantify the impacts of congestion on the supply chains that serve Latin American cities.

While developing the methodology, the research team sought to integrate the following characteristics:

• Applicability: Should be applicable to the wide spectrum of scenarios found in Latin America;
• Comparability: The performance metrics estimated by the methodology should enable comparisons among cities;
• Practicality: Should use the minimal amount of data that can provide solid estimates of the performance metrics selected; and
• Robustness and Verifiability: The data collected must be solid enough to ensure robust results.

The main goal of this project is to implement the methodology and produce robust estimates of the impacts of congestion on supply chains in Port Au Prince, Haiti.

Project Types

Research, Pilot Project.

Period of Performance

January 2018 - January 2019.

Project Site

Port au Prince, Haiti.

Contact

José Holguín-Veras
William H. Hart Professor
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York, USA
JHV@rpi.edu
(518) 276-2098

Topics Addressed

• Economic competitiveness.
• Last mile delivery.
• Logistics/distribution.
• Mobility/congestion.
• Supply chains.

Expected Outcomes

The project will produce a final report that summarizes the results of the data collection and analysis, including estimates of key performance measures such as transportation costs per unit time and distance, travel congestion index, and direct externalities produced by freight traffic.

Stakeholder Involvement

The final methodology design integrated the input of stakeholders, including private sector logistic companies and public sector decision makers. The implementation of the methodology includes a process for validating the outcomes with inputs from stakeholders (e.g., private sector) in the system.