A more open economic relationship with Cuba offers the opportunity to expand U.S.-Cuba (and Texas-Cuba) trade, increase imports for U.S. products among Cuban consumers, and foster greater productivity in the Cuban economy. While Texas ports seem well positioned to handle any additional cargo increase associated with increased trade with Cuba, questions remain regarding the island […]
freight
New Report: Potential Impacts of Panama Canal Expansion on Texas Ports
When the Panama Canal opened in 1914, it provided the first ever direct water passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The 2016 expansion of the Canal allows significantly larger cargo ships traveling from East Asia to access the U.S. Gulf and East Coasts via an all-water route, which is typically the least costly way […]
New Report: Role of the Texas Transportation System in Attracting and Retaining Business
In 2015, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute surveyed 500 Texas businesses to determine transportation factors that affect freight business decisions, including facility siting. In this more recent effort, researchers sought to further clarify the importance of transportation in site selection decisions for six key industry sectors: advanced technologies and manufacturing, aerospace and defense, biotechnology and […]
New Report: How Vulnerable is Texas’ Freight Infrastructure to Extreme Weather Events?
The freight community’s ability to prepare for and respond to extreme weather events is in part dependent upon the resilience of the transportation infrastructure and whether the system maintains functionality during and following adverse conditions. However, freight infrastructure resilience analysis, design, and planning methods are relatively immature and may limit the ability to effectively plan […]
TTI offers policy resources as Legislature tackles transportation issues
Members of the Texas Legislature will soon consider actions on a wide array of transportation issues. In many cases, my colleagues and I at TTI’s Transportation Policy Research Center have completed studies that can help inform the upcoming policy discussions on these topics. On January 19, I highlighted some of that relevant work for a […]
Research explores options for moving oil and gas in Texas
After 2007, the application of hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) and horizontal drilling techniques led to rapid new development in the oil and natural gas (O&G) industries in many areas of Texas and in other shale formation areas across the United States. Between 2007 and 2014, an increasing demand for O&G products in a favorable market […]