Transportation research needs are broad, cutting across modes, geographic levels, and types of research. The organizations conducting transportation research and the research programs themselves are diverse. While there is considerable strength in this diversity, it can be difficult to navigate through these programs. Where can I find funding? Who is conducting research in my area of interest? Where do I find the cutting-edge research products?
To help the transportation community access research programs more efficiently, the TRB Conduct of Research Committee, the AASHTO Research Advisory Committee, TRB Staff, and transportation professionals from across the country worked together to produce Funding Sources for Transportation Research: Competitive Programs. The first version of this web resource was posted in December 2008. It will be updated regularly with additional research programs, information and updates for the existing programs, and tips and advice.
Model calendar of due dates for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP)
This summary was produced by the AASHTO RAC Education and Training Task Group and was adapted from a report titled “Transportation Research: Value to the Nation?Value to the States,” a product of NCHRP 20-80(1), which was prepared by CTC & Associates LLC.
One person dies every 16 minutes in a traffic crash in the United States. Over the course of a lifetime, nearly every U.S. resident is touched by consequences of traffic crashes. Toward Zero Deaths is the United States’ highway safety vision. It is the only acceptable target for our nation, our families and us as individuals.
Led by the TZD Steering Committee, the National Strategy on Highway Safety provides a platform of consistency for state agencies, private industry, national organizations and others to develop safety plans that prioritize traffic safety culture and promote the national TZD vision.
Tools, templates, and supplemental information for MDOT researchers to prepare quarterly and annual progress reports, planned-vs-actual graphs, proposals and budget spreadsheets, schedules, and final reports.
The transportation industry will face new and emerging challenges in the future that will dramatically reshape transportation priorities and needs. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) recognizes that research can help ensure that transportation practitioners are equipped to deal with future challenges facing the industry over the next 30 to 40 years. These challenges may derive from the impacts of major global trends, such as climate change, changes in the cost of fuels, and new technology, and from domestic trends, such as changing demographics and lifestyle expectations, changes in land use patterns, and limitations in current transportation finance methods. AASHTO has allocated $5,000,000 to examine longer-term strategic issues both global and domestic that will likely affect state departments of transportation (DOTs) and directed $1,000,000 to each of the following projects: (1) Potential Changes in Goods Movement and Freight in Changing Economic Systems and Demand; (2) Framework for Advance Adoption of New Technologies to Improve System Performance; (3) Approaches to Enhance Preservation, Maintenance, and Renewal of Highway Infrastructure; (4) Effects of Changing Transportation Energy Supplies and Alternative Fuel Sources on Transportation; and (5) Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Transportation Infrastructure and Operations, and Adaptation Approaches.
The 2008 report, “Long-Range Strategic Issues Facing the Transportation Industry” prepared by ICF International of Fairfax, Virginia, presents a framework for this effort and identifies future issues and trends, which may create new challenges for the transportation industry, based on a literature scan of work conducted by futurists, demographers, economists, and other experts. Research conducted for this project will focus on a longer timeframe (30 to 40 years) than is typically examined in NCHRP projects. Although some of the future challenges facing the transportation industry are emerging today, the goal of this research is to look beyond and focus on the longer term consequences.
Independently, and in combination, these trends may have significant implications for the transportation system. Many of the trends and forces affecting the future are interrelated and the crosscutting linkages between trends and forces that will affect transportation in the future will be examined. Research conducted for this project should consider the following two goals: (1) anticipate the future issues that may be approaching so that transportation agencies are better prepared to respond to new and emerging challenges; and (2) explore visions of what the future should look like, so that transportation agencies can help shape the future through their decision-making.
NOTE: This link is to the NCHRP project page; publications are posted separately