The Value of Truck Trade in the Ports-to-Plains Region: The Summary

With $78.2 billion in goods exported domestically to the nine states in the Ports-to-Plains region by truck leading the way, the highway corridors are critical to the regional economy.  Add to that international exports by truck to Mexico of $59.3 billion and to Canada another $20.2 billion and the trading relationship by truck is $158.7 billion market serving the economy of the nine Ports-to-Plains region states. Those figures have grown 73% since 2004. These numbers address only the goods that are initiated within these states and do not address the intra-state movements, the movements of good through the region from other states, the movement of imports, nor the goods that move through the region between Mexico and Canada. 

The Ports-to-Plains region, with a clear focus on energy and agricultural products, relies upon the national highway system to move its goods throughout the region.  The Ports-to-Plains Alliance (PTP) has been tracking the trading relationships domestically since 2002 and to Canada and Mexico since 2004.  These reports address the value of truck and rail, including exports and imports.  Internationally, the data is broken down by key border crossings within the region and then summarized as a whole as the PTP to show the share of the trade market using the corridors.   The value of truck exports thru these PTP border crossing into Mexico has increased 122.6% since 2004 and the market share (% of total truck exports through PTP border crossings) has grown by 11.6% to 42% of the total. The truck exports through the key Canadian border crossings in Montana and North Dakota have grown in value by 176.1% since 2004.  That market share has grown by 10.5%.  Not only is the value of goods using the corridor growing, but the market share exported along these corridors is growing. The international trade data comes from Bureau of Transportation Statistics North American Transborder Freight Data (http://www.bts.gov/programs/international/transborder/TBDR_QA.html).

Domestically, the data also addresses the exports and imports by truck and rail.  This domestic data is from the Freight Analysis Framework by Center for Transportation Analysis in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory under funding from the Federal Highway Administration (http://faf.ornl.gov/fafweb/Extraction2.aspx). This data provides actuals from 2002 and 2007 and estimates to 2015.  Domestic truck exports within the region are projected to grow by 11% between 2002 and 2015.  Truck exports already grew 82% between 2002 and 2007. Domestic truck exports to the PTP region are projected to grow to $90.6 billion in 2015.

This summary will initiate a series of items that will release the PTP reports for each of the nine PTP states over the next few weeks. 

Link to PDF of Data