Windsor-Detroit Border Crossing Problem: Conflict Analysis of the Schwartz Report

Prior to 11th September 2001, the route leading to the main international crossing from Canada to the United States between Windsor Ontario and Detroit Michigan frequently saw trucks queued up to one kilometer to enter the USA. Following the terrorist attacks of that day the queues extended to some 80 km, and lineups of up to four km remained common for several years thereafter. Anxious for relief from the effects of constant truck lineups, the City of Windsor engaged a well-known traffic engineering consultant, whose report called for the governments of Ontario and Canada to spend C$1.5 billion developing a new route that would take international truck traffic off of city streets. The present paper employs the graph model for conflict resolution to predict, in advance of any announcement, the most likely outcome of the proposal given the preferences of the governments of Canada, Ontario and Windsor, and of a pooled body of three competitors vying to become the key new route between the two countries