TRB's mission is to promote innovation and progress in transportation through research. The Intermodal Freight Transport Committee identifies freight research needs and coordinates the dissemination of intermodal freight research among committee members, TRB, and outside groups. The committee coordinates preparation of research problem statements and ideas, reviews papers submitted for TRB annual meetings, and identifies sessions and speakers for TRB and other meetings.

To mark the approach of the 21st century, TRB committees mounted a special effort to capture the current state of the art and practice and their perspectives on future directions in their respective areas of focus. The resulting millennium papers were intended to help readers gain a better understanding of the current technologies, practices, and issues of interest to transportation professionals, as well as to identify issues and challenges likely to be faced in the future. See the Intermodal Freight Transport Committee's Millennium paper at the following link, AT045 Millennium Paper.

In May 2001, the committees and task forces comprising Section A1B00 develop research problem statements for a Cooperative Freight Research Program. The purpose was to bring critical issues in freight transportation to the attention of researchers in the freight area, and to serve as a foundation for further discussion and analysis from a wider cross-section of freight practitioners. The following link provides information about the committee's problem statements as of March 31, 2006, AT045 Problem Statements A complete listing of "Freight Transportation Research Needs Statements" can be found in TRB's Transportation Research Circular EC048.

The National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) was authorized in SAFETEA-LU. The NCFRP is sponsored by the US Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) and managed by the National Academies, acting through its Transportation Research Board (TRB), with program governance provided by an Oversight Committee including a representative cross section of freight stakeholders. This program was born out of the efforts of TRB committees and task forces to bring freight into the spotlight. Many of the problem statements in the research circular reference above have been reviewed and are now topics for NCFRP contracts.

At TRB's 2003 summer meeting, the Intermodal Freight Transport Committee discussed the need for more focused attention and a more thorough definition of research needs on freight intermodalism. The expectation was that a broad roster of research ideas related to freight in general and to intermodal freight in particular would result. To this end the committee developed a working paper which was first presented at TRB's 2004 annual meeting in Washington, D.C., revised and presented at the 2004 summer meeting in Park City, Utah, and revised and presented at the 2005 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The following is the latest version of the paper.(AT045 Working Paper on Freight Research Ideas).