Borderplex Bridge and Air Econometric Forecast Accuracy

El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico jointly comprise a large cross- border metropolitan economy. El Paso is an important port-of-entry for international cargo, as well as a key transit point for regional trade flows in the southwestern United States. Reflective of those traits, the borderplex econometric forecasting system includes two blocks of transportation equations. One sub-system models northbound surface traffic across the international bridges from Ciudad Juarez. The other deals with passenger, cargo, and mail flows at El Paso International Airport. To gauge model reliability, an analysis of borderplex transportation variable forecast accuracy relative to a random walk benchmark is completed. Empirical evidence is mixed with respect to model precision for the 1998-2003 sample period for which data are currently available.