Anchors Aweigh: How maritime interests occupy a vital link in the freight industry.

We rely upon waterborne shipping for most of the products we buy and use every day. We hardly give that reliance any thought at all – until something goes wrong.

Episode Transcript

Bernie Fette (00:14):
Hey everyone.
Welcome to ThinkingTransportation conversations
about how we get ourselves andthe stuff we need from one
place to another. I'm BernieFette with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute. Tofully understand and appreciate
just how much we depend onmaritime transportation, take a

(00:36):
look inside your home. Thefurniture you use, electronics,
appliances, and kitchensupplies. Even the clothes you
wear. Chances are just abouteverything that surrounds you
came from somewhere outside ofthe U.S. That means those
things came here on a cargoship before being loaded onto
the trucks that deliver them toyour home or your favorite

(00:59):
shopping outlets. It's aseamless system that appears to
be quite simple. Beneath thesurface, though, we find a
story that's far more complex.
Here to explain that reality isJim Kruse, a senior research
scientist at TTI and directorof the TTI Center for Ports and

(01:20):
Waterways, where he'sresponsible for research
involving waterborne freighttransportation and its
multimodal connections. Thanksso much for being with us, Jim.

Jim Kruse (01:31):
Oh , it's my pleasure. It's always fun to
chat with you.

Bernie Fette (01:34):
So today we're chatting about maritime
transportation, which has beenin the news a little more than
usual in recent months. InMarch, of course, we had the
cargo ship that crashed intothe Francis Scott Key Bridge
near the Port of Baltimore.
Then less than two monthslater, a barge crashed into the
bridge that connects Galveston,Texas to Pelican Island. Can

(01:58):
you begin for everyone, just bygiving us a quick recap of what
happened in each case for thoseof us who may have heard about
the incidents but didn't readbeyond the headlines?

Jim Kruse (02:11):
Sure. Well, in the case of Baltimore, what
happened was a , a major oceancarrier capable of carrying
about, I think 10,000 TEUs ,which is containers, was
heading outta the Port ofBaltimore on a four week
voyage. As it was going downthe channel, it apparently lost
electrical power and needed theelectricity to manage the
engines. And so everything shutdown. They were unable to steer

(02:34):
it. They were unable to forceit to veer off and miss the
bridge. So it went straightinto one of the bridge pilings
and brought the bridge down. Inthe case of the Galveston
situation, there is an oilterminal right next to the
bridge that we're talkingabout, and as a tow boat was
pulling a couple of barges outof that terminal, it lost
control of them . And becauseof current and high tide and so

(02:55):
forth, the barge was suckedinto the bridge at Galveston
and damaged one of its supportstructures. So they're very
different kinds of incidents,but they both involve a marine
vessel crashing into a bridge.

Bernie Fette (03:08):
Right. In the case of the Baltimore
collision, the cargo ship waslarge, as you said, about
10,000 containers on board .
Mm-Hmm. , but it, it was not nearly as big as
some out there. Which makes mewant to ask you, how has the
size of ships that use theseports changed over time, and
what are the implications ofthat change?

Jim Kruse (03:31):
Well , let me, first I define TEU because I used
that term and didn't define it,please. A-T-A-T-E-U is a 20
foot equivalent unit. So acontainer that is 20 feet long
is one TEUA container that's 40feet long is two TEUs, and most
containers are 40 feet long. Somost of 'em count for two TEUs,
but that's how they measure thecapacity of ocean going

(03:54):
vessels. They measure them inTEUs.

Bernie Fette (03:56):
Okay .

Jim Kruse (03:57):
The TEU capacity of the vessel coming outta
Baltimore, I believe was in the10,000 range, but they're
building a number of vesselsnow that are in the 18 to
19,000 TEUs. I think some haveexceeded 20,000. So this would
be considered a slightly largerthan normal, but pretty much
average size vessel.

Bernie Fette (04:17):
Okay. And as you said, it sounds like the size
of these ships and thecapacity, the carrying capacity
for them is increasing and hasbeen increasing over several
years. I guess one of thethings I'm wondering is can the
infrastructure keep up with andchange as quickly and adjust to
that magnitude of growth inshipping volume? I , you talked

(04:41):
about building bigger ships,but how hard is it to build a
bigger seaport?

Jim Kruse (04:45):
Well, there are several factors that have to be
considered. One is you have tohave a deeper channel, and
channels are always maintainedby the US Army Corps of
Engineers. They have to studyit, approve it, and fund it. So
that's one aspect. The secondaspect ,

Bernie Fette (04:59):
And that's the actual dredging of the channel
to make it deep enough forthose ships. Correct.

Jim Kruse (05:02):
Right. Deep enough and wide enough both . I see.
But yes , the channel has to belarge enough to accommodate the
type of vessels they want tohandle. Okay . Then you have
the dock structures have to beable to handle these vessels,
and you have to have cranes bigenough to work the vessels, and
you have to have yards bigenough to store the cargo in an
intermediate stage while it'scoming off or getting onto the

(05:22):
vessel. And then you have tohave connections to the land
side . So there's a lot ofthings that go into building a
port's capacity. The biggestproblem most ports are facing
right now is that there's aconstraint on the amount of
land they can acquire. If youlook back at history a little
bit, most of our large citieswere built where there are
ports. That is why they arewhere they are. And as the city

(05:45):
has grown, it has surroundedthe port with urban areas, some
residential areas, otherindustrial areas, but
essentially the land's alltaken around the port. And so
it's very difficult for it toexpand. So then you have to
look at various ways ofmanaging the cargo while it's
in the port terminal and makethat more productive. And
that's pretty much what theports are focused on right now.

Bernie Fette (06:06):
So in the absence of being able to expand,
they're just trying to operatemore efficiently?

Jim Kruse (06:11):
That's correct.
There are almost noopportunities right now for a
port to develop a previouslyundeveloped site into a port.
So they're gonna have to findways to manage what they're
doing more effectively andefficiently.

Bernie Fette (06:23):
I was wondering also if there are any ways in
which, getting back to the factthat these were both collisions
Mm-Hmm. , ifthere are any ways in which
bridges are typically protectedfrom collisions like these,
maybe you could talk a little,if you would, about the option
of fortifying theinfrastructure to prevent a
disaster versus the efforts torespond to a disaster when it

(06:46):
happens.

Jim Kruse (06:48):
One of the problems we have with most of our
bridges that , that arecrossing ship channels or in
the way of oceangoing vesselsis that they were designed in a
time when the vessels weremuch, much smaller. Mm-Hmm . On
the average, today's vesselsgoing in and out of ports are
about four times larger thanthey were back in the seventies
when the Francis Scott KeyBridge was built. So if you

(07:08):
look just the impact ofsomething that much bigger,
even if you had designed thebridge to support or to resist
an impact from a vessel in thatday and age, it would not hold
up against a vessel four timesthat large. So the biggest
problem we have in fortifyingthe bridges is that they were
not designed, there was neverany thought given that vessels
would be this big. And sothat's a big concern. What most

(07:31):
ports or most bridgeconstruction companies are
doing is selling what they calldolphins or bollards, very
massive concrete pillars infront of the bridge support
structure, so that if a vesselor a barge loses control and it
goes on its own down thechannel, it will smash into
that concrete structure beforeit hits the bridge and protect
the bridge. And that seems tobe the way most bridge

(07:52):
protection measures are beinginstituted right now.

Bernie Fette (07:55):
And you mentioned that they're called dolphins or
sometimes bollards, which Iguess means that they function
in much the same way that thebollards do, that we see, say
in front of a storefront onland.

Jim Kruse (08:06):
Yes. They're there to absorb an impact and to keep
the vessel from getting to thebridge.

Bernie Fette (08:11):
On the surface, it might seem to some of us
that the Baltimore andGalveston examples had some
things in common, but you'vealready pointed out that that's
really not the case. Mm-Hmm.
that there werereally far more differences
between those two incidentsthan there were any
similarities. Can you talk alittle bit more about those
differences? I think youstarted to earlier, but maybe
expand on that just a bit.

Jim Kruse (08:33):
Well, let's start with the Galveston situation.
The Galveston Bridge inquestion here is a bridge that
connects Galveston Island tothe Pelican Island. Pelican
Island is where the Texas A&MGalveston campus is. And so
there are large numbers ofstudents and some industrial
facilities on Pelican Island.
That bridge is the onlyconnection that that island has
to Galveston. And so when itgoes down, everybody's trapped

(08:55):
on Pelican Island. The thingabout the Pelican Island bridge
is it's a very old bridge. Ithas been in need of
reconstruction for a long time.
As I understand it, the TexasDepartment of Transportation
now has it on their books tostart rebuilding that bridge in
2025. I don't know if they canaccelerate that, because there
are so many permitting anddesign issues that had to be
taken care of first. Mm-Hmm .

(09:17):
. But at the veryleast, they'll start fixing
that problem next year. But theproblem with the Pelican Island
Bridge, it was not designed toresist impacts from barges.
It's an old bridge. It was justbasically a bridge to connect
two pieces together, .
And so it was not designed withmarine activity in mind other
than recreational vessels. Soit's, it just was not designed

(09:38):
to handle that. And that's partof the problem there with the
Baltimore situation. It's awhole 'nother world. That
bridge was actually part of theI- 695 corridor going around
the city of Baltimore. It's ,it's a very heavily traveled
corridor, and it handles a lotof traffic and a lot of
commerce. The problem you havewhen the Baltimore Bridge went
down, well, lemme back up astep. When the Galveston bridge

(10:00):
was hit, it was not in the wayof any cargo bearing traffic.
It was at the end of a shipchannel. Nobody needed to go
past it to get to anyterminals. In the Baltimore
case, when that bridge wentdown, it completely blocked the
port of Baltimore. And to putthat in perspective, the port
of Baltimore is the country'slargest importer of vehicles.
It's also a major exporter ofcoal and some other industrial

(10:22):
commodities. And so when thatwent down, a whole lot of
things came to a standstill inBaltimore and stayed that way
for two months or so, which hada tremendous economic impact,
both on port employees, dockworkers, and businesses that
import and export outtaBaltimore.

Bernie Fette (10:39):
And you're talking about, I guess what we
could refer to as dominoeffects from, from an event
like this that really reachedinto multiple areas of society,
including people who seeminglywould have no direct connection
to port activity. People whoused the bridge, for instance,
to commute to work every day .
Mm-Hmm. . And I'mguessing that now, or at least

(11:02):
for a time, there was a lot ofrerouting of traffic that had
to go to other areas. And soagain, the ripple effects of
something like this would reachout pretty far, it seems.

Jim Kruse (11:11):
Yeah. There are two immediate ripples, if you wanna
call them that, that come tomind in , in my case. One is
that you have now taken away amajor highway. And so traffic's
gonna have to be rerouted forseveral years through parts of
Baltimore that typicallyweren't required to handle that
traffic. And so that's gonnacreate tremendous congestion
concerns and traffic managementconcerns in the area around the

(11:32):
port. The other is that allthese vessels that were coming
to Baltimore, it takes two orthree weeks on the water for a
vessel to leave its port oforigin and get to Baltimore. So
when that bridge went down, youhad a whole bunch of vessels
that were out there in theocean planning to go to
Baltimore that now could not,they had to go somewhere. And
the problem that you have isthat another port would have to

(11:54):
have the capacity to take thevessel on. The second is it had
to be able to handle the typeof cargo the vessel has. Not
everybody can handle vehiclesand trucks and so forth. Not
everybody can handle coal. Andso these vessels all of a
sudden had to stop, figure outwhat port they were gonna go
to. And then the shipper or thereceiver of that cargo in the
Baltimore area now had toarrange to pick that up in some

(12:16):
other port, which was not intheir plans originally. They
may not even have relationshipswith the people that handle
that cargo in the other ports.
So now you have a mad scrambleto organize all the trucking
and rail and so forth that hasto take place to get this stuff
from where it was supposed tobe in Baltimore from these
ports where it actually wentto. And so that increases the
cost of business, increase thecost of business, raises

(12:38):
prices, and it cost economy alot of money in terms of
elevated cost and prices. Andso it's several ripple effects
are taking place and ,

Bernie Fette (12:46):
And then eventually those costs get
passed on to consumers.

Jim Kruse (12:49):
Right. It's not reasonable to assume that every
bit is just gonna absorb it all.

Bernie Fette (12:53):
Right. Right's, when you talk about the ships
that were waiting out in theocean that could suddenly no
longer go to the port ofBaltimore. It made me think of
another example that might helppeople understand in their own
experience, which is when weare on a plane, it lands at an
airport and it was supposed togo to a particular gate, but
for one reason or another, itcan't go to that gate. Mm-Hmm.

(13:15):
. But all of theother gates have their own line
of aircraft waiting to get to agate. So you've got a new one
that's trying to horn its wayin to the system and, and
again, more ripple effects. Isthat a fair analogy?

Jim Kruse (13:30):
It is. And you might even take that one step more.
It might be more analogous to aplane that has to be diverted
to another airport because theweather's so bad it can't land
at its original destination.

Bernie Fette (13:39):
Ah, yes. Okay.

Jim Kruse (13:40):
So now you we're gonna go to New York, now you
have to land in Hartford. Howdo you get back to New York?
? That's the problem.
Right ? Right . And it's thesame thing with the cargo. It ,
it didn't go where it wassupposed to go, so how does it
get where it was supposed togo?

Bernie Fette (13:54):
And the flights are scheduled so tightly, one
after another that whenever youtry to throw one in, it's not
easy to simply accommodatethat. And the same would be
true then for the portsituations.

Jim Kruse (14:05):
Right. And one of the things that influences the
Baltimore situation is themarine industry is pretty much
past the pandemic era. Thingsare actually better now in
terms of volumes of cargo thanthey were before the pandemic.
And so there's a concern thatcertain terminals might not
even have the capacity to takeanother vessel like this and
handle its cargo and get it offonto land and where it's

(14:26):
supposed to be or vice versa.
And so you have capacityissues, you have scheduling
issues, and then the whole coststructure is now different.

Bernie Fette (14:34):
Right. Looking at this just a little more
broadly, it seems that theseincidents underscore a
persistent reality in ourtransportation systems. Not
only seaports, but all of ourtransportation systems overall.
That being that we often don'tthink about those systems very

(14:55):
much until something goeswrong, .

Jim Kruse (14:57):
Right.

Bernie Fette (14:58):
When a highway bridge collapses, when a train
derails, when a commercialairliner crashes. With that
reality in mind or thatassumption that everything is
just fine going on from day today , can you talk a little
about just how much and in whatways we depend on marine
transportation without thinkingabout it?

Jim Kruse (15:20):
Yes, I can do that.
And in fact, it's veryinteresting. Most people handle
a large number of items intheir own home that came from
overseas. And I challengepeople sometimes to just go sit
in their living room or theirdining room or their kitchen
and go around and look at thevarious items you have there
and see if you can figure outwhere they were produced. My

(15:41):
guess is you'll find that over90 percent of that was produced
in another country, which meansthey had to get here somehow.
And unless it came from Mexicoor Canada, it came by water.
And so much of what we do isdefinitely dependent upon ocean
transportation. I use oneillustration, which I think is
very interesting. There aretimes I show an illustration of
a person sitting in a room withjust his underwear on. And what

(16:03):
I point out is that nothing inthat room came from the U.S.
And so if you take away oceantransportation, this is what
it's gonna look like. .

Bernie Fette (16:10):
Okay.

Jim Kruse (16:11):
And so I , I think that helps people understand. I
remember one person saying,well, why do we need a port? We
have Walmart. Well, you won'thave Walmart if you don't have
a port. And so you won't have aplace to shop. You won't be
able to get to things youtypically use on a daily basis
if the transportation system isnot working on the ocean.

Bernie Fette (16:29):
And if it's not working, not only on the ocean,
but with the connections thatit requires once it gets from
ocean to land.

Jim Kruse (16:36):
That's correct. And, and the pandemic highlighted
that because once it got here,there was no place for it to
go. Everything was crowded andwarehouses were full, rail
terminals were stacked up.
There was just no place foranything to go. And so you have
to have a landside system thatcan move this stuff right away
in an effective and costefficient manner, or things
just don't happen.

Bernie Fette (16:57):
A lot more complicated than it might seem
on the surface.

Jim Kruse (17:00):
It's amazing. That's an interesting point because
I've quite often pointed out topeople that just to bring a
vessel into a port requiresabout 20 different entities to
actually process that vesselcoming. And so there's a lot
that goes on that just is allbehind the scenes. It looks
like it's normal, it's easy todo, it's not really, and as
soon as you throw a monkeywrench into the works, it just

(17:22):
goes crazy.

Bernie Fette (17:24):
And sooner or later those products don't end
up on the store shelves.

Jim Kruse (17:28):
That's right. Or if they do, they become so
expensive, you just don't havethe money to buy them.

Bernie Fette (17:32):
Right. How long does a recovery say in the case
of the Baltimore incident, howlong does a recovery take?

Jim Kruse (17:41):
Well, depends on whose aspect of recovery we're
talking about. As far as theport goes. It was about two
months ago that that bridgewent down. And the Corps of
Engineers has reported they'reabout to open the channel to
ordinary traffic in another fewdays. So that'd be, I'm gonna
say about two months that ittook the marine side to get
going. Again on the land side ,to replace that bridge is at

(18:03):
best a four year projectrunning about $2 billion. And
that's if all the permittingand design and all stuff is
done in a very rapid and costefficient manner. So who really
knows, but it's gonna be a longtime before the surface
transportation side of thisgets repaired.

Bernie Fette (18:18):
So you're telling us that four years would
essentially be a result of fasttracking the project?

Jim Kruse (18:25):
Yes. It's not unusual for a bridge project to
take 7, 8, 9 years to get done.
And they're hoping to get itdone in four. So that means
they're really gonna push thisone.

Bernie Fette (18:35):
Speaking of recoveries, does the recovery
stage involve not only anopportunity to rebuild, but
also an opportunity toreexamine or re-envision things
in a broader industry sense,given how many changes have
happened in the industry sincethose bridges and ports were
built?

Jim Kruse (18:56):
I think there's a lot of reexamination going on
just to name a few areas. Somebusinesses are now looking at
bringing their productionfacilities away from Asia and
back to Mexico or the UnitedStates or Latin America,
somewhere closer home wherethere's not such a risk of
things falling apart. Otherpeople are looking at the whole
concept of just in time. In thepast, systems have been

(19:18):
designed to where everythingarrives at its destination just
as it's needed. So you don'thave to have a lot of
inventory, you don't have totrack it. When it shows up at
the door, we throw it into theproduction process and out it
goes to the other end. That'snot working when your system
starts failing. And so peopleare beginning to think now
about just in case wherethey're gonna have to start
adding inventory and bufferinventories to manage these

(19:39):
sudden changes or disturbancesto the system. So I think
that's another major issuethat's happening. And of course
the final issue is how shouldwe design the function of ports
and their connectedinfrastructure so that it can
handle the ever increasingvolumes that we're seeing.

Bernie Fette (19:54):
That makes me want to ask you, as you're
looking into possibilities,things to consider in the
future. If you could study justone thing in marine
transportation after all theseyears that you've been doing
it, if you could study just onething in marine transportation
research for the next couple ofyears and you had all the
funding you needed to studythat one thing, a sponsor

(20:17):
research sponsor gave you ablank check, what would you
focus on?

Jim Kruse (20:21):
I think what I'm seeing now that's most
interesting to me is the wholedrive to have a non-carbon
future in the marine world.
That's an incredibly difficultthing to do because assets last
so long, a notion going vessellast a minimum of 20 years. Tow
boats on the waterway systemlast 50 years. So you can't
just wait for a system to rollover and replace it with new,

(20:42):
better functioning assets.
There have to be things thathappen now. So there has to be
the ability to retrofit or tochange the fuels that current
assets are using. And thatbecomes very complicated
because not only do you have tohave the right fuel, you have
to have access to that fuel.
Mm-Hmm. , Thesevessels go all over the world.
And so they have to be able toget what they need in whatever

(21:03):
part of the world they happento be in when they run outta
fuel. Right. And that's not agiven. And so I think there'll
be more than one alternativefuel. So what fuels are we
gonna use? How are they gonnabe supplied and how will that
change vessel routing in thefuture? Will they have to be
more selective about ports theygo to so they can get the
fuels? It's a massiveundertaking and it has to be
done in view of the fact thatassets aren't just gonna roll

(21:25):
over. You have to work withwhat you have now and make it
better.

Bernie Fette (21:27):
Right. I think I heard you say that you are
expecting there to be more thanone alternative fuel . Did I
hear you say that you expectedtwo?

Jim Kruse (21:35):
Not necessarily.
Two, it could be a variety. Imean people, right . Well

Bernie Fette (21:38):
Be your prediction of the first
alternative fuel that we mightsee being used in big cargo
ships.

Jim Kruse (21:46):
You know, the best thing about forecast is they're
always wrong. So , Ihesitate to do that. I know the
front runners are ammonia andhydrogen right now that's,
that's what people ,

Bernie Fette (21:54):
Ammonia and hydrogen. Mm-Hmm .
. Okay .

Jim Kruse (21:57):
And they were kind of related 'cause hydrogen
comes from ammonia. But in anyevent, it's that kind of fuel
that people are looking at. Theobstacles you face are some of
them clear up your emissionsprocess and some of them don't.
Some of them require a wholelot more space on board because
they don't give as much bangfor the buck or bang for the
gallon as diesel does. Mm-Hmm .
. And so you haveto take more space away from

(22:18):
your cargo capacity, which mostpeople don't wanna do. And then
you have ,

Bernie Fette (22:21):
You're cutting into profit margin.

Jim Kruse (22:23):
Exactly. And then you have to also be careful
about the safety factors. Isthis gonna be more difficult to
manage if a problem happens?
Will people die if somethinggoes wrong? So all those things
have to be incorporated intothe thought process. And so
there is no one fuel that youcould just say, okay, it's
great for the environment, it'sgreat for safety, it's great
for fuel efficiency, it'sgreat. None of those match all

(22:44):
of those. So there's gonna haveto be a blending of competing
objectives are gonna have tocome into play. And it's just
too early to tell, quitefrankly.

Bernie Fette (22:51):
I think it's just interesting that you said
ammonia and hydrogen and didn'tsay one of the other
alternative fuels that many ofus would be more familiar with
-- nuclear power for in someinstances. For instance,
another waterborne example. Wehave submarines that are
running on nuclear power.

Jim Kruse (23:09):
That is an issue that I find interesting. I , I
think there's going to be moreemphasis placed on the nuclear
fuel option uhhuh just simplybecause it is cleaner and it's
easier to manage. But theproblem is we can't compare it
to navy vessels because theyuse a technology that is
totally different from whatyou'd wanna put on a cargo
vessel. Okay. But the advancesin technology for that type of

(23:30):
nuclear power on a cargo vesselhave been tremendous in the
last few years. The safetyfactor has really increased and
the ability to use it is muchmore applicable than it used to
be. So I think we're gonna seenuclear move toward a higher
level of priority in the systemof things. But right now it
doesn't have that visibilitythat I think it should have.
Hmm .

Bernie Fette (23:50):
Anything I haven't asked you about that
you were waiting for me to askyou about?

Jim Kruse (23:55):
No, I don't think so. Uh , it's just a
fascinating how so many piecesall have to come together to
make our transportation systemwork. And all you have to do is
mess with one of them and thewhole thing goes crazy .
I think that's, it's just aninteresting facet of life.

Bernie Fette (24:10):
My last question, what is it that motivates you
to show up to work every day ?

Jim Kruse (24:15):
That's an interesting question because
I'm gonna be honest with you.
It's not necessarily the , theresearch I do, it's the people
I work with. I work with agroup of people who are highly
professional and reallybrilliant, and it's just fun to
work with people who know whatthey're doing and do it well.
The stuff that we'reinvestigating and researching
really does make a differenceto the lives of people, whether
they realize it or not. And soit's rewarding in that sense as

(24:36):
well. So I guess there'sseveral things that keep me
going, but those are the twomajor ones.

Bernie Fette (24:42):
We've been visiting with Jim Kruse, a
senior research scientist atTTI and director of the TTI
Center for Ports and Waterways.
Thanks for being with us, Jim,and thanks so much for making
things a little moreunderstandable for all of us.

Jim Kruse (24:57):
My pleasure.

Bernie Fette (25:00):
Maritime shipping, like all other modes
of transportation, is one ofthose things that we hardly pay
any attention to untilsomething goes wrong. Like when
a cargo ship carrying thousandsof containers crashes into a
major interstate highwaybridge, stranding motorists,
disrupting supply chains, anddemonstrating clearly how our

(25:22):
land, air, and water transportmodes constitute an amazingly
delicate and carefully balancedsystem. One in which there is
virtually no room for mistakes.
Thanks for listening. Pleasetake just a minute to give us a
review, subscribe and sharethis episode, and please join

(25:42):
us next time for anotherconversation about getting
ourselves and the stuff we needfrom point A to point B.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University system. The show isedited and produced by Chris
Pourteau. I'm your host, BernieFette.. Thanks again for

(26:06):
joining us . We'll see you nexttime.