Shuttle could transform how port handles freight
Officials agree to study how, where to build A&M electric hauling system
BRYAN — A futuristic freighthauling shuttle that can move massive cargo containers from one major shipping terminal to another at up to 70 mph hour without using a drop of diesel or stopping at a single traffic light is set to get its realworld debut at the Port of Houston.
If all goes according to plan, the freight carrier, developed by Texas A&M Transportation Institute researcher Stephen Roop, will be used to move containers between the port’s Bayport and Barbour’s Cut terminals.
Powered by a 1,500-volt electrical current, the shuttle would travel the five miles between the terminals on a rail built along Texas 146.
State, port and transportation institute officials on Friday announced an agreement to move toward building the system that has been in the making for a dozen years. The agreement commits port officials to study the economic and engineering feasibility of the electric shuttle, and exactly where building one to handle port traffic makes sense.
“It has transformed from this great idea to something that is really quite real,” Port of Houston
Authority executive director Roger Guenther said of the freight shuttle.
The exact route, cost and who would pay for it will be part of the next few months of study. The analysis will initially focus on a shuttle moving between the two terminals at 30 mph. Roop said he’s hopeful a shuttle could be operational on Houston’s docks within three
years, with one year of study and two years of construction.
Though officials have focused on private funding, the freight shuttle could be eligible for public money. In Houston, officials could use federal money funneled to the state related to reducing vehicle congestion to help build a shuttle,
if it was shown to decrease pollution by removing diesel trucks from highways.
The shuttle’s potential to speed cargo handling and reduce emissions drew accolades from state officials.
“Imagine the way these port facilities will look without those clogged roadway systems,” Gov. Greg Abbott said during a news conference in Bryan announcing the shuttle’s anticipated launch in Houston.
Though the shuttle is capable of carrying cargo swiftly, its development has taken a slow, methodical pace, from computer models to scale models to a full-sized system now sitting in a barn-sized building at the end of a nondescript road near Bryan’s general aviation airport.
“We like to think of it as Houston’s newest shuttle,” said Roop, who cited America’s space exploration as inspiring many developments over the past six decades.
Skepticism and worry
Considered by its designers as a complement to the trucking industry, the freight shuttle’s development thus far has been greeted by truckers with skepticism.
“Most of them think it is pie in the sky,” said John Esparza, CEO of the Texas Trucking Association. “But when you talk to a lot of them, the initial feedback is that it could really be a threat to some trucking companies’ business.”
Freight Shuttle Inc., a private company developed from the transportation institute research, would license the technology — the team holds 17 patents related to the shuttle — and then help companies and ports like in Houston find money to build a shuttle.
Houston’s port is the first partner, but not the only interested party in Texas. Officials in Fort Bend County and Freeport have cited the freight shuttle as a potential alternative connecting Port Freeport to the BNSF terminal in Rosenberg, a distance of about 50 miles.
“The efficiency of it is much better,” Fort Bend County Commissioner Andy Meyers said during an April meeting with Freeport and Panamanian officials.
The system is powered by linear induction, an electrical current that the on-track motors repel, forcing them along the line. With virtually no moving parts, Roop said the motors experience less wear and tear, making the $400,000 units outlast semi tractortrailers that can cost that much or more.
“We’ll move cargo for about 10 cents a mile in electricity,” Roop predicted.
What equalizes that cost is the freight shuttle is expensive to build before it can carry any freight. Abbott said that while Houston’s port is ahead with its planning, El Paso officials also are looking closely at the shuttle system for improved trade and freight movement from Mexico. With no extraordinary factors to consider, Roop’s analysts have estimated a 12mile shuttle line between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, would cost $12 million per mile for construction.
“We think we can shave 20 percent off of that,” Roop said.
Reducing congestion
Whether officials can reduce building costs is uncertain, but they say what’s virtually guaranteed is the electric shuttle would reduce truck trips in major metro areas if installed along clogged freight routes. Texas 146 and eastern segments of Interstate 10 in the Houston area have high truck volumes because goods are moving in and out of the petrochemical complexes and port along the Houston Ship Channel.
In heavy traffic area, redirecting freight off local freeways could solve a host of problems facing state and local officials, and the trucking industry.
“We are at a place where we are definitely needing more drivers,” said Glenna Bruun, senior executive vice president of the Texas Trucking Association, based in Austin.
Though it will never replace trains or trucks for all cargo transportation, Roop said on a recent tour of his freight shuttle, it is capable of taking many trucks off the road. That could dramatically reduce maintenance costs of freeways, where hundreds of heavy trucks do far more damage than tens of thousands of automobiles and light-duty trucks.
“It’s a real return on avoided costs to the (Texas Department of Transportation),” he said. “We estimated TxDOT would save $70 million if freight shuttle took 15 percent of the trucks off along (Interstate 35) from San Antonio to Dallas.”
The analysis was done in 2012, when Roop and his Freight Shuttle partners first talked to state officials about a partnership. The plan was initially to use I-35 as a real-time test.
“It was too ambitious at the time,” Roop said earlier this month. “We were ahead of ourselves.”
Efforts, however, yielded some of the developments that make the Houston port deal and other prospects more likely. Despite running on steel wheels and rail, the freight shuttle is not a railroad, at least to the federal government.
Above-freeway access
Rather than be governed by the Federal Railroad Administration, Roop and others convinced authorities to classify them as an “intelligent transportation system” under the auspices of the Federal Highway Administration.
That provides two key advantages to developing the freight shuttle, he said. First, it makes the Houston port project potentially eligible for a portion of $6.3 billion federal officials directed to intelligent transportation.
“We’re the first mover in this space, I think it is safe to say,” Roop said.
Second, it builds on an earlier agreement freight shuttle developers struck with TxDOT to lease the airspace above state freeways and rights of way.
Having access to existing rights of way — located where most freight wants to travel — makes developing the freight shuttle system easier. Because the shuttle’s owner would control use, it also means the system doesn’t have to meet roadway specifications for things such as maximum weight.
While TxDOT must build a bridge assuming that it will carry its maximum weight one day, Roop said the bridges that carry the freight shuttle can be built to carry much less weight, which means reduced costs.
“We’re able the assure only two vehicles are on any span at any given time,” Roop said, explaining the difference between the electric shuttle and a freeway overpass built by a state or local entity. “They don’t control the distribution of traffic, we do.”
Truck drivers, meanwhile, now are needed for nearly every non-rail movement of goods, from the port docks to the distribution center to the store. If new cargo transportation methods can eliminate some of those tasks — such as dock-to-distribution center movements — drivers could be redeployed to other trips.
“There is going to be a place for trucking,” the state trucking association’s Esparza said. “The changes are where the trucking industry evolves. Whether that is automation or something like this” electric freight shuttle.
No easy fix
No single solution is ever going to work for moving freight, however, said Todd Stewart, president of Gulf Winds International, which transports and stores cargo coming in and out of Houston.
“It is difficult to lay out a map and say ‘We’re going to remove all these trucks,’” Stewart said. “Obviously in a perfect world we can reduce traffic, but these are populated areas and you have a lot of residential area.”
To address a large population and high demand, distribution centers, warehouses and workers are spread across the entire region, Stewart said.
That makes moving away from trucks — which can drive almost anywhere on what roads and highways already are built — difficult.
But wait times already are an hour to haul cargo across the Mexico border into Texas. With total tonnage transported into Texas expected to reach 3.3 billion in 2040 — roughly double today’s amount — those waits at the border are expected to get much worse without changes in how cargo is moved. Officials hope one day the electric freight shuttle can provide those changes in cargo handling.
“I think the hard part is trying to retrofit things that have developed over a long period of time,” Stewart said. “You might think it is a great idea to move these containers from Houston to another location, but it might be more efficient to move them as they do today.”