Modeling of an International Smart Freight Corridor Platform for the Border Between Michigan and Ontario Resulted in a Benefit-Cost Ratio Up to 2.54.
The Platform Reduced Vehicle-Hours of Delay for Freight Traffic Crossing the Blue Water Bridge.
Port Huron
Blue Water Bridge International Smart Freight Corridor Project
Summary Information
The Blue Water Bridge (BWB) links Port Huron, Michigan, to Point Edward, Ontario, and serves as a critical artery for international commercial and freight traffic. The BWB experiences lengthy and unpredictable delays, particularly during peak hours, creating significant challenges. This project aimed to alleviate congestion through an International Smart Freight Corridor (ISFC) Platform, which provided users with real-time and predictive travel time data. The project goals were to enable better travel decision-making by users, support timely incident response, and improve commercial traffic flow by reducing wait times, queuing, and congestion.
METHODOLOGY
A web-based ISFC Prototype was developed as part of the Stage 1 Proof of Concept. It used real-time and historic data from November 2024 to April 2025, including:
- Bridge traffic volumes by passenger and commercial vehicles, provided by the Michigan Department of Transportation.
- Border lane availability by hour, on the US Customs and Border Protection wait time webpage.
- Hourly border wait times and travel times from a Bluetooth system.
- Historical weather data for Sarnia, Ontario.
Two models, a general time model and a time series model, were then developed to predict crossing times for a generic hour or a real-time situation. The models demonstrated predictive capabilities of bridge travel times for freight vehicles. A Cost-Benefit Analysis was also performed to look at an at-scale ISFC implementation across a 10-year timeframe. It assumed a range of delay reductions: optimistic (10 percent) pessimistic (5 percent), and base (7.5 percent). Data for the analysis included US Customs and Border Protection border wait times (October 2023), toll plaza vehicle volumes (2019-2023), and parameters for fuel consumption and operating costs adjusted to 2024 dollars.
FINDINGS
- Vehicle-Hours of Delay: The ISFC Prototype, projected out to at-scale implementation, may reduce total vehicle-hours of delay by approximately 7 percent within the first year (395,000 vehicle-hours/year baseline versus 365,000 for Year 1).
- Cost-Benefit Analysis: The benefits of an ISFC at-scale implementation were expected to exceed deployment and operational costs in all three scenarios. The benefit-cost ratios were 1.27 (pessimistic), 1.90 (base), and 2.54 (optimistic).
