US Foreign Waterborne Cargo Data System

The U.S. Foreign Waterborne Cargo Data System was developed by Vanderbilt University to analyze and display U.S. maritime cargo flows as an aid to transportation policy and planning. This system utilizes ArcIMS Internet GIS software to produce maps and reports showing relative maritime cargo flows between the U.S. or specified U.S. ports, and foreign ports, countries or regions. This system uses annual maritime cargo databases which are created and published by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Navigation Data Center.

The system has query forms that allow users to analyze the cargo database. An analysis for a specific year or comparison between years is supported. Users first build their query by selecting the items: Year, U.S. Port or entire U.S., Imports or Exports, and Commodity. Based on these selected items, the user can then list all Foreign Ports, Countries and Regions that were involved in commodity movement with the entire U.S. or selected U.S. Ports for the selected year. The query results can be generated in a tabular, map or Excel graph format.

Potential system users include government agencies, international organizations, businesses, port authorities, individual shippers/carriers, trade associations and chambers of commerce.

For more information on this project, please contact Dr. James Dobbins.