This project is in collaboration with a private equity firm that invests in real estate used for transportation and logistics. The goal of this research is to determine underserved geographic markets where the amount of freight activity is greater than the amount of supply chain real estate to support it. Supply chain real estate investments have historically been focused in or near large urban centers, and this project seeks to use a data-driven approach to identify markets that could be advantageous for investment. Our approach consisted of three key steps, which include mapping transportation flows in the United States, understanding the sponsor company’s portfolio and overall supply chain real estate market, and analyzing underserved markets by considering both transportation flows and supply chain real estate data. Regions of the United States were aggregated into Key Market Areas (KMAs) and then ranked from most to least underserved based on a ratio of freight activity to supply chain real estate within each KMA. A wide range of ratios were calculated as the most overserved market’s ratio is over 40 times that of the least underserved market. The final output is a tool that visualizes underserved geographic markets on a dashboard which can be used to support investment decisions by the firm.
