Cleveland State Community College participated in the annual State of Freight Forum in which Thrive Regional Partnership unveiled its latest research project. Partnering with Georgia Institute of Technology and CSCC, Thrive has created the Greater Chattanooga Freight Hub, a collection of dashboards which can be used to access transportation data throughout the tri-state region of Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee.
This collaboration is concurrent with the development of a Logistics and Supply Chain Management degree program at Cleveland State Community College, designed to connect students of the region to career opportunities in the transportation industry. Under the project leadership of Thrive and Georgia Tech, William Fulford from Cleveland State Community College supported the creation of the Greater Chattanooga Freight Hub.
The GCFH platform will be a foundational resource to the degree program, providing practical opportunities for CSCC students to explore and learn data analysis and visualization in an environment that supports regional communities and industries in real time.
Dr. Ty Stone, Cleveland State president, said, “Once again, Cleveland State is on the forefront of using technology to serve our businesses and communities. This resource will be used by industry, government officials, planning agencies, and higher education institutions throughout the region. We are very proud to be a part of this project, which will serve as a resource for decades to come.”
Dr. John Squires, CSCC’s executive director of Advancement and Planning, added, “This was a unique opportunity for Cleveland State to partner with Thrive and Georgia Tech to address a real-world issue in the logistics arena by applying data analysis and visualization. It will be a valuable tool for students in our new Logistics and Supply Chain Management program.”
Potential applications of the Greater Chattanooga Freight Hub include locating key corridors for projects that could optimize state and federal funding; research support for long range transportation plans by area Metropolitan Planning Organizations in Chattanooga and Cleveland, as well as Dalton; and curriculum development for colleges and universities in the tri-state to meet the talent demands of the manufacturing and logistics industries in greater Chattanooga.
Additionally, this research will parallel environmental priorities determined in Thrive’s Cradle of Southern Appalachia regional conservation blueprint. By layering transportation needs and projections alongside environmental priority areas, planners and leaders can make decisions that support an array of stakeholders, officials said.
The Greater Chattanooga Freight Hub can be found online at https://greater-chattanooga-freight-hub-thrive-geohub.hub.arcgis.com/.