ANALYSIS OF MARKETING MARGINS IN THE U.S. LAMB INDUSTRY

Factors affecting marketing margins were identified and assessed using a relative price spread technique. Margins were disaggregated into slaughter-to-wholesale and wholesale-to-retail for a more complete understanding. Marketing costs, concentration, demand, and price were used to explain variations within these margins. Results showed that packer concentration had a significant effect on margins. Forces of supply and demand (as represented by production and market price) and changes in marketing costs also explained the variation in margins. A higher degree of price transmission from slaughter-to-wholesale level was observed in comparison to the wholesale-to-retail level.Marketing,

More on Estimating Elasticities using Lagged Endogenous Variables

Demand and Price Analysis,

Smart Infrared Inspection System Field Operational Test Final Report

The Smart InfraRed Inspection System (SIRIS) is a tool designed to assist inspectors in determining which vehicles passing through the SIRIS system are in need of further inspection by measuring the thermal data from the wheel components. As a vehicle enters the system, infrared cameras on the road measure temperatures of the brakes, tires, and wheel bearings on both wheel ends of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) in motion. This thermal data is then presented to enforcement personal inside of the inspection station on a user friendly interface. Vehicles that are suspected to have a violation are automatically alerted to the enforcement staff. The main goal of the SIRIS field operational test (FOT) was to collect data to evaluate the performance of the prototype system and determine the viability of such a system being used for commercial motor vehicle enforcement. From March 2010 to September 2010, ORNL facilitated the SIRIS FOT at the Greene County Inspection Station (IS) in Greeneville, Tennessee. During the course of the FOT, 413 CMVs were given a North American Standard (NAS) Level-1 inspection. Of those 413 CMVs, 384 were subjected to a SIRIS screening. A total of 36 (9.38%) of the vehicles were flagged by SIRIS as having one or more thermal issues; with brakes issues making up 33 (91.67%) of those. Of the 36 vehicles flagged as having thermal issues, 31 (86.11%) were found to have a violation and 30 (83.33%) of those vehicles were placed out-of-service (OOS). Overall the enforcement personnel who have used SIRIS for screening purposes have had positive feedback on the potential of SIRIS. With improvements in detection algorithms and stability, the system will be beneficial to the CMV enforcement community and increase overall trooper productivity by accurately identifying a higher percentage of CMVs to be placed OOS with minimal error. No future evaluation of SIRIS has been deemed necessary and specifications for a production system will soon be drafted

The SPAN cookbook: A practical guide to accessing SPAN

This is a manual for remote users who wish to send electronic mail messages from the Space Physics Analysis Network (SPAN) to scientific colleagues on other computer networks and vice versa. In several instances more than one gateway has been included for the same network. Users are provided with an introduction to each network listed with helpful details about accessing the system and mail syntax examples. Also included is information on file transfers, remote logins, and help telephone numbers

Preliminary Assessment of Overweight Mainline Vehicles

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requested information regarding overweight and oversized vehicle traffic entering inspection stations (ISs) in order to develop strategies for future research efforts and possibly help guide regulatory issues involving overweight commercial motor vehicles (CMVs). For a period of one month, inspection stations in Knox County and Greene County, Tennessee, recorded overweight and oversized vehicles that entered these ISs. During this period, 435 CMVs were recorded using an electronic form filled out by enforcement personnel at the IS. Of the 435 CMVs recorded, 381 had weight information documented with them. The majority (52.2%) of the vehicles recorded were five-axle combination vehicles, and 50.6% of all the vehicles were permitted to operate above the legal weight limit in Tennessee, which is 80,000 lb for vehicles with five or more axles. Only 16.8% of the CMVs recorded were overweight gross (11.5% of permitted vehicles) and 54.1% were overweight on an axle group. The low percentage of overweight gross CMVs was because only 45 of the vehicles over 80,000 lb. were not permitted. On average, axles that were overweight were 2,000 lb. over the legal limit for an axle or group of axles. Of the vehicles recorded, 172 vehicles were given a North American Standard (NAS) inspection during the assessment. Of those, 69% of the inspections were driver-only inspections (Level III) and only 25% of the inspections had a vehicle component (such as a Level I or Level II). The remaining 6% of inspections did not have valid Aspen numbers; the type of was inspection unknown. Data collected on the types of trailers of each vehicle showed that about half of the recorded CMVs could realistically be given a Level I (full vehicle and driver) inspection; this estimate was solely based on trailer type. Enforcement personnel at ISs without an inspection pit have difficulty fully inspecting certain vehicles due to low clearance below the trailer. Because of this, overweight and oversized vehicles were normally only given a Level III (driver) inspection; thus, little is known about the safety of these vehicles. The out-of-service (OOS) rate of all the inspected vehicles (driver and vehicle inspections) was 18.6%, while the OOS rate for vehicle inspections (Level I and II) was 52.4%. Future work will focus on performing Level I inspections on five-axle combination tractor-trailers and the types of violations that overweight vehicles may have. This research will be conducted in Tennessee and possibly in other states as well

Heavy and Overweight Vehicle Brake Testing: Five-Axle Combination Tractor-Flatbed Final Report

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in coordination with the Federal Highway Administration, sponsored the Heavy and Overweight Vehicle Brake Testing (HOVBT) program in order to provide information about the effect of gross vehicle weight (GVW) on braking performance. Because the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations limit the number of braking system defects that may exist for a vehicle to be allowed to operate on the roadways, the examination of the effect of brake defects on brake performance for increased loads is also relevant. The HOVBT program seeks to provide relevant information to policy makers responsible for establishing load limits, beginning with providing test data for a combination tractor/trailer. This testing was conducted on a five-axle combination vehicle with tractor brakes meeting the Reduced Stopping Distance requirement rulemaking. This report provides a summary of the testing activities, the results of various analyses of the data, and recommendations for future research. Following a complete brake rebuild, instrumentation, and brake burnish, stopping tests were performed from 20 and 40 mph with various brake application pressures (15 psi, 25 psi, 35 psi, 45 psi, 55 psi, and full system pressure). These tests were conducted for various brake conditions at the following GVWs: 60,000, 80,000, 91,000, 97,000, 106,000, and 116,000 lb. The 80,000-lb GVWs included both balanced and unbalanced loads. The condition of the braking system was also varied. To introduce these defects, brakes (none, forward drive axle, or rear trailer axle) were made inoperative. In addition to the stopping tests, performance-based brake tests were conducted for the various loading and brake conditions. Analysis of the stopping test data showed the stopping distance to increase with load (as expected) and also showed that more braking force was generated by the drive axle brakes than the trailer axle brakes. The constant-pressure stopping test data revealed a linear relationship between brake application pressure and was used to develop an algorithm to normalize stopping data for weight and initial speed

Wireless Roadside Inspection Phase II Tennessee Commercial Mobile Radio Services Pilot Test Final Report

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Wireless Roadside Inspection (WRI) Program is researching the feasibility and value of electronically assessing truck and bus driver and vehicle safety at least 25 times more often than is possible using only roadside physical inspections. The WRI program is evaluating the potential benefits to both the motor carrier industry and to government. These potential benefits include reduction in accidents, fatalities and injuries on our highways and keeping safe and legal drivers and vehicles moving on the highways. WRI Pilot tests were conducted to prototype, test and demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of electronically collecting safety data message sets from in-service commercial vehicles and performing wireless roadside inspections using three different communication methods. This report summarizes the design, conduct and results of the Tennessee CMRS WRI Pilot Test. The purpose of this Pilot test was to demonstrate the implementation of commercial mobile radio services to electronically request and collect safety data message sets from a limited number of commercial vehicles operating in Tennessee. The results of this test have been used in conjunction with the results of the complimentary pilot tests to support an overall assessment of the feasibility and benefits of WRI in enhancing motor carrier safety (reduction in accidents) due to increased compliance (change in motor carrier and driver behavior) caused by conducting frequent safety inspections electronically, at highway speeds, without delay or need to divert into a weigh statio

Medium Truck Duty Cycle Data from Real-World Driving Environments: Final Report

Since the early part of the 20th century, the US trucking industry has provided a safe and economical means of moving commodities across the country. At present, nearly 80% of US domestic freight movement involves the use of trucks. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is spearheading a number of research efforts to improve heavy vehicle fuel efficiencies. This includes research in engine technologies (including hybrid and fuel cell technologies), lightweight materials, advanced fuels, and parasitic loss reductions. In addition, DOE is developing advanced tools and models to support heavy vehicle research and is leading the 21st Century Truck Partnership and the SuperTruck development effort. Both of these efforts have the common goal of decreasing the fuel consumption of heavy vehicles. In the case of SuperTruck, a goal of improving the overall freight efficiency of a combination tractor-trailer has been established. This Medium Truck Duty Cycle (MTDC) project is a critical element in DOE s vision for improved heavy vehicle energy efficiency; it is unique in that there is no other existing national database of characteristic duty cycles for medium trucks based on collecting data from Class 6 and 7 vehicles. It involves the collection of real-world data on medium trucks for various situational characteristics (e.g., rural/urban, freeway/arterial, congested/free-flowing, good/bad weather) and looks at the unique nature of medium trucks drive cycles (stop-and-go delivery, power takeoff, idle time, short-radius trips). This research provides a rich source of data that can contribute to the development of new tools for FE and modeling, provide DOE a sound basis upon which to make technology investment decisions, and provide a national archive of real-world-based medium-truck operational data to support energy efficiency research. The MTDC project involved a two-part field operational test (FOT). For the Part-1 FOT, three vehicles each from two vocations (urban transit and dry-box delivery) were instrumented for the collection of one year of operational data. The Part-2 FOT involved the towing and recovery and utility vocations for a second year of data collection. The vehicles that participated in the MTDC project did so through gratis partnerships in return for early access to the results of this study. Partnerships such as these are critical to FOTs in which real-world data is being collected. In Part 1 of the project, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) established partnerships with the H.T. Hackney Company (HTH), one of the largest wholesale distributors in the country, distributing products to 21 states; and with Knoxville Area Transit (KAT), the city of Knoxville s transit system, which operates across Knoxville and parts of Knox County. These partnerships and agreements provided ORNL access to three Class-7 day-cab tractors that regularly haul 28 ft pup trailers (HTH) and three Class-7 buses for the collection of duty cycle data. In addition, ORNL collaborated with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to determine if there were possible synergies between this duty cycle data collection effort and FMCSA s need to learn more about the operation and duty cycles of medium trucks. FMCSA s primary interest was in collecting safety data relative to the driver, carrier, and vehicle. In Part 2 of the project, ORNL partnered with the Knoxville Utilities Board, which made available three Class-8 trucks. Fountain City Wrecker Service was also a Part 2 partner, providing three Class-6 rollback trucks. In order to collect the duty cycle and safety-related data, ORNL developed a data acquisition system (DAS) that was placed on each test vehicle. Each signal recorded in this FOT was collected by means of one of the instruments incorporated into each DAS. Other signals were obtained directly from the vehicle s J1939 and J1708 data buses. A VBOX II Lite collected information available from a global positioning system (GPS), including speed, acceleration, and spatial location information at a rate of 5 Hz for the Part 1 FOT. For the Part 2 FOT, this information was obtained from DAS-based GPS instrumentation. The Air-Weigh LoadMaxx, a self-weighing system that determines the vehicle s gross weight by means of pressure transducers, was used to collect vehicle payload information for the combination, urban transit, and towing and recovery vehicles. A cellular modem, the Raven X EVDO V4221, facilitated the communication between the eDAQ-lite (the data collection engine of the system) and the user. The modem functioned as a wireless gateway, allowing data retrievals and system checks to be performed remotely. Also, in partnership with FMCSA, two additional safety sensors were installed on the combination vehicles: the MGM e-Stroke brake monitoring system and the Tire SafeGuard tire pressure monitoring system. All of these sensors posted data to the J1939 data bus, enabling the signals to be read withou..

Supply Chain Based Solution to Prevent Fuel Tax Evasion: Proof of Concept Final Report

The goal of this research was to provide a proof-of-concept (POC) system for preventing non-taxable (non-highway diesel use) or low-taxable (jet fuel) petrochemical products from being blended with taxable fuel products and preventing taxable fuel products from cross-jurisdiction evasion. The research worked to fill the need to validate the legitimacy of individual loads, offloads, and movements by integrating and validating, on a near-real-time basis, information from global positioning system (GPS), valve sensors, level sensors, and fuel-marker sensors

Supply Chain Based Solution to Prevent Fuel Tax Evasion: Proof of Concept Final Report

The goal of this research was to provide a proof-of-concept (POC) system for preventing non-taxable (non-highway diesel use) or low-taxable (jet fuel) petrochemical products from being blended with taxable fuel products and preventing taxable fuel products from cross-jurisdiction evasion. The research worked to fill the need to validate the legitimacy of individual loads, offloads, and movements by integrating and validating, on a near-real-time basis, information from global positioning system (GPS), valve sensors, level sensors, and fuel-marker sensors