Analyzing the impact of Hurricane Florence on Freight Transportation in North Carolina using Telematics data

Problem:
Hurricane Florence caused severe flooding and road closures across North Carolina. Decision-makers needed a detailed, data-driven assessment of how freight movement was disrupted and how quickly the network recovered.

Approach:

  • Ingested and processed 587,000 GPS trip records from before, during, and after the hurricane.
  • Aggregated movements to road segments and analysed intensity changes across three phases.
  • Used spatial analysis in QGIS to map freight re-routing and traffic density shifts.
  • Applied robustness metrics and mean time to recovery to quantify resilience of key corridors.

Key Insights / Outcomes:

  • Identified total shutdown of critical freight routes (I-95, I-40, US-17, US-70) during peak flooding.
  • Documented significant re-routing, including a surge on NC-704 as an alternative corridor.
  • Recovery rates varied — some routes restored in 11 days, others at partial capacity weeks later.
  • Highlighted resilience gaps and provided data-driven recommendations for future disaster planning.

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