Documents

Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 2: Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and the Highway System: Practitioner’s Guide and Research Report

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 2: Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and the Highway System: Practitioner’s Guide and Research Report provides guidance on adaptation strategies to the likely impacts of climate change through 2050 in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure assets in the United States (and through 2100 for sea-level rise).

In addition to the practitioner’s guide and research report, this project also developed the following items:
• A software tool that runs in common web browsers and provides specific, region-based information on incorporating climate change adaptation into the planning and design of bridges, culverts, stormwater infrastructure, slopes, walls, and pavements.
• Tables that provide the same information as the previously mentioned software tool, but in a spreadsheet format that can be printed.
• Two spreadsheets that illustrate examples of the benefit-cost analysis of adaptation strategies discussed in Appendix B of Part I of NCHRP Report 750, Volume 2.

These three items are available on a CD-ROM that is included with a print version of the report. The CD-ROM is also available for download from TRB’s website as an ISO image. Links to the ISO image and instructions for burning a CD-ROM from an ISO image are provided below.

• Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image.
• Download the .ISO CD-ROM Image

(Warning: This is a large file and may take some time to download using a high-speed connection.)

NCHRP Report 750, Volume 2 is the second in a series of reports being produced by NCHRP Project 20-83: Long-Range Strategic Issues Facing the Transportation Industry. Major trends affecting the future of the United States and the world will dramatically reshape transportation priorities and needs. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) established the NCHRP Project 20-83 research series to examine global and domestic long-range strategic issues and their implications for state departments of transportation (DOTs); AASHTO’s aim for the research series is to help prepare the DOTs for the challenges and benefits created by these trends.

Other volumes in this series currently available include:
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 1: Scenario Planning for Freight Transportation Infrastructure Investment
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 3: Expediting Future Technologies for Enhancing Transportation System Performance
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 4: Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 5: Preparing State Transportation Agencies for an Uncertain Energy Future
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 6: The Effects of Socio-Demographics on Future Travel Demand

Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 1: Scenario Planning for Freight Transportation Infrastructure Investment

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 1: Scenario Planning for Freight Transportation Infrastructure Investment analyzes the driving forces behind high-impact economic and social changes as well as sourcing patterns that may affect the U.S. freight transportation system. The report also introduces scenario planning as a tool that can be used in conjunction with other planning methods to improve the quality of long-range transportation infrastructure planning.

Four future scenarios were developed as part of the project that created NCHRP Report 750, as well as a detailed methodology that planners can follow to conduct their own scenario planning workshops. The scenarios and methodology are included in a DVD format with the print version of the report.

The DVDs are also available for download from TRB’s website as ISO images. Links to the ISO images and instructions for burning a DVD from an ISO image are provided below.

Help on Burning an .ISO DVD Image

Download the .ISO DVD Image 1: Data
Download the .ISO DVD Image 2: Videos
(Warning: These are very large files–more than 1.3 GB each–and may take about an hour to download using a high-speed connection.)

A detailed discussion of the driving forces analyzed in NCHRP Report 750, Volume 1 is contained in NCHRP Web-Only Document 195: Driving Forces Influencing Future Freight Flows.

NCHRP Report 750, Volume 1 is the first in a series of reports being produced by NCHRP Project 20-83: Long-Range Strategic Issues Facing the Transportation Industry. Major trends affecting the future of the United States and the world will dramatically reshape transportation priorities and needs. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) established the NCHRP Project 20-83 research series to examine global and domestic long-range strategic issues and their implications for state departments of transportation (DOTs); AASHTO’s aim for the research series is to help prepare the DOTs for the challenges and benefits created by these trends.

Other volumes in this series currently available include:
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 2: Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and the Highway System: Practitioner’s Guide and Research Report
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 3: Expediting Future Technologies for Enhancing Transportation System Performance
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 4: Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 5: Preparing State Transportation Agencies for an Uncertain Energy Future
• NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 6: The Effects of Socio-Demographics on Future Travel Demand

Critical Issues in Transportation 2019 (2018)

To spur the conversation on implementing new technologies to improve transportation and to face the unprecedented challenges facing the transportation sector in its critical role in society and the economy, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) identified and organized an array of important issues under 12 key topics. In each of these areas, TRB posed a series of crucial questions to help guide thinking, debate, and discovery during the next 5 to 10 years. These 12 topics are neither comprehensive nor mutually exclusive, and no one can know how the future will unfold. But TRB thinks that asking the right questions, even if they cannot be fully answered, helps to motivate the analysis, discussion, and debate required to prepare for the potentially unprecedented changes ahead.

These 12 key topics are as follows:

  1. Transformational Technologies and Services: Steering the Technology Revolution
  2. Serving a Growing and Shifting Population
  3. Energy and Sustainability: Protecting the Planet
  4. Resilience and Security: Preparing for Threats
  5. Safety and Public Health: Safeguarding the Public
  6. Equity: Serving the Disadvantaged
  7. Governance: Managing our Systems
  8. System Performance and Management: Improving the Performance of Transportation Networks
  9. Funding and Finance: Paying the Tab
  10. Goods Movement: Moving Freight
  11. Institutional and Workforce Capacity: Providing a Capable and Diverse Workforce
  12. Research and Innovation: Preparing for the Future

 

An abbreviated version of this document can be accessed at https://www.nap.edu/resource/25314/criticalissues/.

Critical Issues in Transportation 2019: Policy Snapshot

To spur the conversation on implementing new technologies to improve transportation and to face the unprecedented challenges facing the transportation sector in its critical role in society and the economy, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) identified and organized an array of important issues under 12 key topics. In each of these areas, TRB posed a series of crucial questions to help guide thinking, debate, and discovery during the next 5 to 10 years. These 12 topics are neither comprehensive nor mutually exclusive, and no one can know how the future will unfold. But TRB thinks that asking the right questions, even if they cannot be fully answered, helps to motivate the analysis, discussion, and debate required to prepare for the potentially unprecedented changes ahead.

These 12 key topics are as follows:

 

  1. Transformational Technologies and Services: Steering the Technology Revolution
  2. Serving a Growing and Shifting Population
  3. Energy and Sustainability: Protecting the Planet
  4. Resilience and Security: Preparing for Threats
  5. Safety and Public Health: Safeguarding the Public
  6. Equity: Serving the Disadvantaged
  7. Governance: Managing our Systems
  8. System Performance and Management: Improving the Performance of Transportation Networks
  9. Funding and Finance: Paying the Tab
  10. Goods Movement: Moving Freight
  11. Institutional and Workforce Capacity: Providing a Capable and Diverse Workforce
  12. Research and Innovation: Preparing for the Future

 

This document is an abbreviated version of a more thorough discussion of the critical issues in transportation, which can be accessed at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25314/critical-issues-in-transportation-2018.

Research Strategic Plan 2021-2025

TDOT completed a Research Strategic Plan to gather feedback from the agency’s stakeholders to identify the agency’s most critical research needs, improve the program’s processes to appropriately address those needs, and set the foundation for research to drive innovation and transportation efficiencies within Tennessee.