ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH NEEDS IN TRANSPORTATION: REPORT OF A CONFERENCE, WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 21-23, 2002:
Every 5 years the Transportation Research Board conducts a Transportation Environmental Research Needs Conference to select and draft top-priority statements of environmental research needs. This report contains the proceedings of the most recent of these conferences which was held in March 2002, this time with a multimodal perspective. In the proceedings are top research needs identified at the conference, along with background papers. These are organized into chapters for each of the following 15 topic areas: Air Quality; Community Impacts, Environmental Justice, and Public Involvement; Context-Sensitive Design, Including Aesthetics and Visual Quality; Cultural Resources; Energy and Alternative Fuels; Environmental Information Management; Environmental Streamlining and Stewardship; Integrated Environmental Decision Making; Land Use and Transportation; Noise; Sustainability, Including Climate Change: Cause and Effects; Transportation, Human Health, and Physical Activity; Waste Management and Environmental Management: Recycling, Waste, Pollution Prevention, Brownfields; Water Quality and Hydrology; and Wetlands, Wildlife, and Ecosystems.
This report is published to assist those involved with government, university, and other research programs in selecting research projects that will have the greatest utility for the transportation environmental community. WETLANDS, WILDLIFE, AND ECOSYSTEMS: RESOURCE PAPER: This resource paper summarizes the continuing research needs in the area of wetlands, wildlife, and ecosystems in their relationship to transportation activities. Although there has been a great deal of progress, these needs continue to be similar to those expressed at the last Environmental Research Needs in Transportation Conference in 1996. Adequate impact evaluation tools still need development and testing on transportation projects. Techniques to measure the quality of ecosystems and associated biota need to be developed and tested. The effectiveness of mitigation or compensation for impacts should be evaluated. Furthermore, the effectiveness of programmatic approaches in accomplishing environmental and regulatory goals, while showing great promise, still requires thorough evaluation.
TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 521:
Identification of Research Needs Related to Highway Runoff Management summarizes significant stormwater management practices and research efforts, and it identifies the most pressing gaps and needs in the current state of knowledge in over more than 30 subject areas. The report includes full research project statements for the topics considered to be of highest priority.
TRB Special Report 299:
A Transportation Research Program for Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change and Conserving Energy suggests that federal, state, and local policy makers need informed guidance about the effectiveness, costs, feasibility, and acceptability of transportation strategies to mitigate transportation greenhouse gas emissions and conserve energy and to adapt to climate change. The report covers strategies affecting travel and mode choice, models and decision tools, infrastructure investment options, and infrastructure construction, operation, and maintenance. The committee that prepared the report recommends beginning a research and development initiative by making a modest investment of $40 million to $45 million annually in the next surface transportation authorization that would be used to develop the best available guidance quickly on the basis of existing information and then begin to improve that guidance over time as new research is completed.
Transportation Research Board (TRB) E-Circular 144:
he objective of this effort was to develop a series of specific research needs statements on climate change and transportation for distribution to universities, students, research organizations, government agencies, and other interested parties for consideration in conducting and funding research in this important area.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sponsored the development of a Pavement Management Roadmap to help identify the steps needed to address current gaps in pavement
management and to establish research and development initiatives and priorities. This document presents a 10-year Pavement Management Roadmap that can be used to guide new research, development, and technology transfer opportunities that will lead to improved approaches to pavement management. This Roadmap can substantially improve current practices by identifying the existing gaps and needs in pavement management.
The final results of this project are presented in this report, which presents the prioritized list of research, development, and technology transfer opportunities recommended over the next 10 years. The report also documents the process undertaken to develop the Roadmap and the short- and
long-term needs statements that were produced. The needs statements included as Appendix B describe the activities recommended as part of the Roadmap, and their associated costs. The needs statements can be used by the FHWA or other research agencies to secure funding to advance the Pavement Management Roadmap. The needs statements are organized by theme and by recommended timeframe (i.e., short-term and long-term).
This digest summarizes the primary thrust areas of ?business needs? for pavement engineering adopted by the AASHTO Joint Task Force on Pavements. These needs were initially identified by a large number of pavement professionals through a consensus-building process in a workshop conducted as part of NCHRP Project 20-7(127), ?A Strategic Plan (Road Map) for Pavement Research.? The workshop was facilitated by a team of professionals from the Virginia Transportation Research Council.
This document constitutes the Intelligent Transportation Systems Strategic Plan covering the years 2015 to 2019; it builds on the progress of the 2010-2014 plan and presents a wide array of technical, policy, institutional, and organizational concepts. It provides a comprehensive perspective that is based on an inclusive, collaborative, interactive, and iterative process, with a wide mix of stakeholder engagement opportunities that ensured that the Strategic Plan reflects the aspirations of the multi-faceted ITS community across the nation. This new Plan identifies a vision ? ?Transform the Way Society Moves,? and the ITS JPO?s associated mission of advancing research that cuts across all surface modes; outlines technology lifecycle stages and strategic themes articulating outcomes and performance goals that define six program categories; describes ?Realizing Connected Vehicle Implementation? and ?Advancing Automation? as the primary technological drivers of current and future ITS work across many sectors; and, presents enterprise data, interoperability, ITS deployment support, and emerging ITS capabilities as additional program categories that are supplemental and interdependent activities critical to achieving the program?s vision. The plan further identifies research questions aligned to every program category in each stage of the technology lifecycle, in addition to cross-cutting organizational and operational disciplines that relate to the program categories.
TRB Transportation Research Circular E-C048: Freight Transportation Research Needs Statements identifies critical issues in freight transportation as a resource for researchers in the freight area and serves as a seedbed for further discussion and analysis from a wider cross-section of freight practitioners.
“This portfolio presents current research
projects at WSDOT.”
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