The U.S. Department of Transportation issued a request for information on December 27 to help develop a National Freight Strategic Plan or NFSP that includes 11 “statutorily required components” mandated by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation or FAST Act to address the needs of multimodal freight transportation.

The USDOT noted that a national freight strategy “will be helpful” in terms of infrastructure planning as it estimates that freight tonnage will increase by 44 percent between 2015 and 2045, placing increased strain on a system that moves approximately 18 billion tons of freight annually across the country via all modes of transportation.

The agency added that key aspects of this NFSP include: an assessment of the condition and performance of the national multimodal freight network; freight volume forecasts over five, 10, and 20-year periods; identification of major freight gateways and as well as bottlenecks; an assessment of statutory, regulatory, technological, institutional, financial, and other barriers to improved freight transportation performance; a process for improving collaboration on multistate projects.