Regional Freight Profile
Nashville has an excellent distribution network at hand with highway, rail, air, and barge facilities all readily available. Three major U.S. interstate highways intersect in Nashville: I-40, I-65, and I-24. The area is served by numerous freight carriers with terminal locations throughout the metropolitan area and beyond. The Cumberland River provides full river barge access to the Gulf of Mexico. CSX Transportation serves Nashville with a major classification yard as well as container, automotive, and bulk terminals. Companies who arrange freight transportation on behalf of local businesses are also active in the Region.
Nashville's freight infrastructure carries significant tonnage of traffic through the year. The total volume is just short of 300 million tons. While all four modes of transport - truck, rail, water, and air - are represented, trucking far surpasses others in volume.
Of the total tonnage moving in the Nashville Region, 87% is moving by truck. Rail service moves a substantially smaller volume at 11% of the total, and water and air have lesser volumes. Individual Profiles show the breakdown of tonnage by mode.
A substantial portion of the total freight traffic traversing the Nashville Region is "through traffic" with no origin or destination in the area. Nearly 80% of truck and rail tonnage combined is through traffic. Looking just at tonnage based in the area (excluding through traffic), Nashville is a medium sized freight market with a typically heavy reliance on the truck mode: 81% of area-based tonnage moves by truck, which is slightly above the 79% national average. The rail share of this volume is half the U.S. average, but that is common in markets where the water mode also is active. The Nashville Area supports over 47,000 trucks per day. The majority of trucks by unit count are classified as through traffic - just over 34,000. The smaller inbound and outbound volumes are fairly well matched - in the neighborhood of 11%.
Trucking Profile
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Railway Profile
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Airway Profile
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Waterway Profile
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Max Baker
Freight Planning Coordinator
Senior Transportation Planner
615-862-7187
baker@nashvillempo.org
