Interim Planning For A Future Strategic Highway Research Program

The 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users authorized the Dept. of Transportation (DoT) to establish a highway research program to address future challenges facing the U.S. highway system. In 2006, the Second Strategic Highway Research Program was established to conduct research in four areas -- safety, renewal, reliability, and capacity. The legislation also required a review of the program no later than three years after the first research contracts were awarded. This report provides information about the process for selecting the program's projects for funding, the projects' status, and what, if any, research was eliminated because of funding and time constraints. Charts and tables.

In 1920, state highway engineers, federal officials, and experts from academia were among a small group convened by the National Academy of Sciences to confront the problems of the highway. The public was entrusting them with billions of dollars for good roads, and World War I had proved the feasibility of moving freight long distances by truck. But even new highways were crumbling. They turned to research for solutions. The founders of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the generations that followed took on problems such as safety, social equity, and environmental issues. They embraced "total transportation," adapting their highway research model to urban transportation and then applying it to rail, marine, and aviation modes. Today TRB convenes thousands of researchers, practitioners, and administrators every year to advise the government, solve practical problems, foster innovation, and stimulate new research. In The Transportation Research Board, 1920â€"2020: Everyone Interested Is Invited, Sarah Jo Peterson tells the story of how people and institutions created and have continued to shape TRB. In a compelling narrative accompanied by more than 150 images exploring the history of transportation and research, she argues that TRB can be best understood as an infrastructureâ€"one that people purposely designed and devotedly maintained. Despite TRB's institutional complexity, its unique mission, the vast collection of acronyms in its orbit, and the significant changes to the organization in its first 100 years, Dr. Peterson provides a view from 30,000 feet, deftly describing the social, political, and economic context in which transportation (and TRB) functioned. At the same time, she attends to details of the key events, individuals, and human motivations that shaped TRB's evolution. The author's skills as a historian, her experience in the transportation field, and her manifest ability to tell a good story have produced a book that transportation professionals of all stripesâ€"and, for that matter, anyone interested in the history of transportation in the United Statesâ€"should find both engaging and informative and an essential addition to their library.

This report sets out several of the recent advances, and suggests the most promising approaches, to the quantification and valuation of some of the wider economic benefits that flow from transport-related development. Economic appraisal can offer decision-makers important insights into the ...

"(SHRP 2): Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life explores promising results expected from the SHRP 2 research and provides recommendations on how they could be most effectively implemented. The committee that developed the report believes that the widespread implementation of products developed by SHRP 2 is critical in order to address the nation's roadway safety, renewal, reliability, and capacity issues." -- provided by publisher.