Browsing by Author "Patterson, Douglas A."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Attack Risk Modelling for the San Diego Maritime Facilities
(2020) Patterson, Douglas A.; Bridgelall, Raj; Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute
California is the largest economy among states in the US. More than 40% of the nation's containerized cargo flows through the marine ports of California. Cruise ships also call on four of California's largest ports, with the Port of San Diego growing the fastest. This study assessed the attack risk for the Port of San Diego by applying a model from the risk assessment framework recommended by the Department of Homeland Security. Quantification of the model's threat and consequence factors was based on economic data derived from various databases. The findings show that the risk of attack is more pronounced for cruise ship operations than for marine cargo operations. The risk is directly proportional to the level of vulnerability to expected perpetrator tactics and weapons. Based on expert knowledge of the port characteristics, the vulnerability assessment points to a low probability that anticipated attack methods could succeed. However, the behavior of terrorists can be unpredictable as they continuously adapt to exploit vulnerability gaps that may be unforeseen. Therefore, it is wise to develop policies that encourage a security culture to avoid complacency and to conduct regular risk assessments.
Policy Implications of Truck Platooning and Electrification
(2020) Bridgelall, Raj; Patterson, Douglas A.; Tolliver, Denver D.; Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute
Trucks in North America account for more than 23% of the transportation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Truck platooning and truck electrification are potential technologies for reducing emissions and operating cost. However, adoption uncertainties result in speculations about their potential impact. Traditional modeling techniques to inform policymaking use large datasets, trained professionals to calibrate complex software, and take hours to run a single scenario. This paper provides a closed-form model that rapidly calculates trends of the potential national petroleum consumption reduction for a range of technology adoption scenarios. The primary finding is that truck electrification would have a substantially larger impact on fuel consumption reduction than platooning. The limitations of platoonable miles create an upper bound in benefits. When calibrated for the base year fuel-efficiency, the model shows that petroleum consumption reduction would be less than 4% at full adoption of platooning. The electrification of single unit trucks results in more than a 13-fold reduction of national petroleum consumption relative to platooning. However, without the electrification of combination unit trucks, petroleum consumption will eventually begin to increase again. Therefore, policies to encourage the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should not overlook incentives to electrify combination unit trucks.