Mexico Freight Assessment

This Mexico Freight Assessment was conducted in 2017 for the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) by the Sustainable Transport and Emissions Services Company, TSTES SA de CV, Mexico in conjunction with Integrated Transport Planning Ltd, England.

ICCT supported this project to assess the freight system in Mexico, with a focus on on-road goods movement, as a key contributor to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s (CCAC) Global Green Freight Action Plan focused on developing and harmonizing green freight efforts on a global scale in order to get maximum reductions of black carbon and improved efficiency from freight transport.

The primary motivation for this project was to develop a much deeper understanding of the on-road freight system in Mexico. This freight assessment builds up the knowledge base in several areas, including market dynamics, opportunities and barriers for truck fuel-saving technologies and operational measures, and the potential benefits of building a more robust and extensive Transporte Limpio program, and harmonizing it with SmartWay.

The scope of the project was exclusively focused on freight transportation by tractor-trailers, and inclusive of the various actors that impact the freight system. This research looks to present a compendium of knowledge to government agencies and other stakeholders in Mexico who are developing strategies for reducing the environmental impacts of the trucking sector and give these decision-makers better tools to evaluate how a green freight program fits into the overall portfolio of policies aimed at the freight sector.

The study compiles publicly available data with findings from previous studies conducted by TSTES (and included with original client agreement) and input from fleets and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Information was gathered from person-to-person interviews and a limited quantitative field survey with 89 stakeholders from different levels of the on-road freight system in Mexico to (a) fill data gaps, (b) update older information, and (c) validate previous findings where
adequate. Although resource constraints prevented a statistically significant analysis of answers, the study provides the most recent data available on the Mexican on-road freight sector.