Minnesota: The most congested highways in Minneapolis
Identifying the worst congestion spots is a first step in making transportation better on highways in Minnesota.
Challenge
Truck drivers in Minnesota often cite congestion on the Twin Cities highways as one of the most significant transportation challenges. When merchandise gets stuck in traffic, the region’s economic competitiveness and growth suffer.
Addressing congestion requires identifying the region’s most frequented truck highway corridors and the sources of their blockage.
CPCS conducted this research for the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities.
Solutions
The central task of this project was to identify the most important truck highway corridors in the Twin Cities area.
“We used the best available data on truck transportation for the job,” says Donald Ludlow, transportation expert at CPCS.
“We combined GPS data from the American Trucking Research Institute (ATRI) with truck counts from the Minnesota Department of Transportation to develop synthetic truck volume estimates.”
Data analysis allowed our experts to rank these corridors by importance and quantify the level of congestion for each.
The team organized field visits to identify the sources of congestion for these roads.
Impact
The study was innovative in its method to assess highway corridors and congestion and advanced a set of policy recommendations for the city council.
