Trucking industry research organization ATRI recently led the development of two primers for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Integrated Corridor Management program, offering strategies for fighting congestion.

Earlier this year, ATRI’s research placed the cost of congestion to the trucking industry at $49.6 billion in 2014. One of the ways to reduce congestion is more effective and efficient movement of people and goods through major urban areas, according to ATRI.

The two ICM primers are designed to help transportation networks realize improvements in urban congestion through integrated, proactive management of existing infrastructure along major corridors.

Most ICM strategies to date have focused on the passenger car aspect of reducing congestion. But ATRI’s primers focus on freight’s role in congestion as well as the role that law enforcement, fire and rescue and other traffic incident management services can play.

ATRI’s first primer examines how freight can be incorporated into an ICM approach as well as the benefits of ICM in addressing many of the challenges in moving freight through congested areas. It explores opportunities to integrate freight considerations into corridor management institutionally, operationally and technically. These include leveraging existing platforms and considering new options for coordination between traditional ICM and freight stakeholders.

The other primer focuses on traffic management and describes how traffic incident management can be incorporated into TCM. It also details how ICM can benefit a traffic incident management program.

Both primers are available on ATRI’s website in PDF format.