Non-Profit (AASHTO, TKNs, TRB, etc.)

An Overview of National Transportation Research

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.

TZD: National Strategy on Highway Safety

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.

Long-Range Strategic Issues Facing the Transportation Industry

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

Critical Issues in Transportation: 2013

TRB?s Executive Committee periodically identifies a set of critical issues in transportation to focus attention on their likely impact on the nation?s economy and quality of life. The discussion of the critical issues identified in this document is intended to facilitate debate and to encourage research leading to their resolution.

Previous editions of Critical Issues in Transportation have highlighted many of the issues that threaten the performance of the nation?s transportation system. In recent years, the Executive Committee has added the need to respond to natural disasters; highlighted how transportation has become ever more linked to broader issues in society and in the economy; and drawn attention to the role transportation plays in energy and environmental issues.

Critical Issues in Transportation: 2013 is designed to stimulate awareness and debate and to focus research on (a) improving transportation system performance and resiliency, (b) reducing transportation injuries and fatalities, and (c) mitigating unsustainable environmental impacts.

The urgency of addressing the critical issues has never been greater. The Executive Committee hopes that readers will become aware of and concerned about these issues, and will join in addressing the problems in transportation so that society and the economy can reap the many benefits it offers.

Seven Keys to a Robust Research Program, NCHRP Synthesis 280

This synthesis report describes the current viewpoints of selected DOT research managers, transportation agency and industry administrators, and academics regarding characteristics of robust research programs. Based on these results and an extensive literature review, the authors identified attributes necessary to build and maintain a robust research program.

Strategic Issues Facing Transportation-Final Research Plan Framework

(NCHRP 20-80 Task 2) 2008, Final research plan framework ?set the framework for a series of reports that examine global and domestic long-range, strategic issues and their implications for departments of transportation. Published as NCHRP Report 750: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volumes 1-6, the reports address topics such as freight movement, climate change, technology, sustainability, energy, and socio-demographics.

Framing Surface Transportation Research for the Nation’s Future

TRB Special Report 313: Framing Surface Transportation Research for the Nation’s Future explores opportunities for improving the productivity of U.S. expenditures on surface transportation research by building on lessons learned from the strategic approach to developing priorities and investing in transportation research in other countries and non transportation sectors in the United States.

AASHTO Standing Committee on Highways Strategic Plan, 2010-2014

The committee members identified ten specific and two overarching objectives and 40 related action Items that are highlighted in this plan. The two overarching objectives
relate to Technical and Governance Issues. The ten specific Objectives outlined in the plan are:
? Cut Fatalities in Half by 2030
? Performance Management
? Congestion-Free America
? Workforce Planning and Development
? System Preservation
? Research and Emerging Technology
? Project Delivery
? Climate Change and
? Freight
? Communicating the Value of Transportation

NCHRP Project 20-83(02): Expediting Future Technologies for Enhancing Transportation System Performance

The objective of this project was to develop a process that transportation agencies can use to identify, assess, shape, and adopt new and emerging technologies to achieve long-term system performance objectives. The process should reflect relevant trends in technologies and their applications and help transportation agencies anticipate, adapt to, and shape the future.

Status: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation: Expediting Future Technologies for Enhancing Transportation System Performance (NCHRP Report 750, Volume 3) has been published.

Additional information on the report was presented in a TRB Webinar in December 2013.