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DDOT Research Strategic Plan: Building a Premier Urban Research Program

The Research, Development, & Technology Transfer (RDT) Program at the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is in the process of setting a strategic direction to improve the effectiveness of its activities. The development of the RDT Strategic Plan, a research roadmap to achieve the agency?s vision, recognizes the vital contribution that research makes to the efficient and effective delivery of transportation services to the community.

The overarching vision is to leverage DDOT?s unique characteristics, location and relationships to transform the RDT program to a leader in applied urban transportation research.

This strategic plan lays out the blueprint for the research program for the next five years (2013-2018).

Highway Safety Research Agenda: Infrastructure and Operations

This report develops a proposed agenda of prioritized safety research needs in the area of highway infrastructure and operations. It was developed to provide options to the U.S. transportation community on how to direct research to the areas where it can provide the most benefit. The agenda is based on a prioritization methodology developed by the research team, which can be applied on a recurring basis to update the agenda over time. Both the agenda and the methodology documented in this report will provide valuable input to all those involved in the conduct and management of highway safety research at all levels of government, the private sector, and academia.

Transportation Research Board Strategic Plan

As the entity responsible for conducting strategic planning for TRB, the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board developed the current Strategic Plan, which was adopted in June 2014. The plan includes an overview of TRB’s strengths, opportunities, limitations, and challenges, and provides details on its vision and goals, and strategies and action items TRB will employ to achieve its vision and goals. Appendices to the plan include the environmental scan, performance assessment, gap analysis, and more. An action plan for the strategic plan will be developed during the second half of 2014 and first half of 2015.

Performance Specifications Strategic Roadmap: A Vision for the Future

In May 2000, the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT), in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the National Partnership for Highway Quality, conducted a workshop on the future of performance-related specifications (PRS) in the highway industry. More than 50 Federal, State, and private sector engineers met to discuss the background, history, and future of this topic. The attendees agreed that the subject was important, extremely complex, and had to be addressed. They recommended a national strategy to identify and coordinate efforts, and FHWA agreed to initiate the process.

In December 2001, FHWA, in cooperation with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and various industry associations, sponsored the first national PRS Technical Working Group (TWG) meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to establish the foundation for a PRS movement to foster the development and application of performance-related specifications. The PRS TWG identified a series of activities that lead to continued development and implementation of PRS. At that meeting, the mission was expanded to include the formation of expert task groups in various technical disciplines and to include warranties, which are clear and growing alternatives to PRS.

In November 2002, the PRS TWG met again to review work accomplished by the expert task groups and to discuss several additional aspects of PRS. The attendees reemphasized their support for the effort and suggested that method specifications be addressed in some format in the PRS mission. Noting that the mission had been expanded to include method specifications and warranties along with performance-related and performance-based specifications, the attendees also recommended that the name of the effort be changed to the Performance Specification Program.

This Performance Specifications Strategic Road Map is intended to be used as a tool to guide the highway community in developing, implementing, and accepting performance specifications as viable alternatives for highway construction. It is a working document that will be maintained by the FHWA on its website and periodically updated.

The Concrete Pavement Roadmap

The Concrete Pavement (CP) Road Map is a plan for concrete pavement research that will guide the investment of research dollars for the next several years. This TechBrief is a summary of FHWA-HRT-05-052 Concrete Pavement Road Map Volume I and FHWA-HRT-05-053 Concrete Pavement Road Map Volume II.

Pavement Roadmap Problem Statements: Theme 1

The final product of the research is a best practice guide for pavement management. Not only will this be a reference for all things related to pavement management, but it will also act as a “desk guide” for practitioners. To enhance access and implementation, it is envisioned that this guide will be developed and available through an electronic web-based format.