Airport Research Needs: Cooperative Solutions -- Special Report 272 (2003)

In the preceding chapter, examples are given of problems that airports share and that are not being well addressed today. These problems are candidates for research through a cooperative program involving airport owners and operators, federal agencies, airport users, and others in the aviation industry. In this chapter, characteristics of cooperative programs that will be important in meeting such research needs on a continuing basis are identified. How the program is governed, financed, and managed will be central concerns. The means chosen will fundamentally influence the kinds of problems researched, the quality and credibility of the research, and the probability of the results being applied in the field.

The legislative request for this study calls for an examination of the structure and effectiveness of two existing cooperative research programs in transportation: the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP). These two programs are examined in detail below, with a particular focus on the means by which they are governed, financed, and managed. The insights gained from these reviews will be helpful in conceptualizing a cooperative program to meet research needs concerning airports.

The operation and maintenance of highways have been government responsibilities since the Colonial era. The federal government did not begin to play an important role in their planning and finance until after World War II. Urban transit systems, which were once mostly private entities, are now owned mainly by state and local governments, and they have received significant amounts of capital assistance from the federal government since the 1960s. By comparison, most airports did not receive significant amounts of federal aid for infrastructure improvements until enactment of the Airport and Airway Development Act in 1970.

Despite the federal government’s expanded role in all three cases, the nation’s airports, highways, and transit systems remain decentralized. They are owned and administered mainly by state and local entities. Sometimes several jurisdictions own them as part of regional transportation authorities, but more often than not they are owned by individual states, counties, and municipalities. In all cases, the federal government’s primary means of influencing their development and operations is through financial incentives and regulation. In some respects, this decentralized transportation infrastructure appears to be at odds with the evolution of these systems into national networks. Indeed, the federal government has involved itself in system planning and funding largely on the grounds that national defense and national and international commerce warrant greater uniformity and inter-connectivity of these many components. While accepting federal assistance, state and local governments have sought to retain primary control over their systems.

The appeal of cooperative research programs in the highway and transit modes is related to the desire of state and local governments to retain authority over their transportation systems. Even though they face many similar problems, states and localities realize that they have unique circumstances, and they want the flexibility to adopt appropriate solutions. NCHRP and TCRP are means by which the highway and transit communities have attempted to strike a balance between national cooperation and state and local autonomy in the area of research.

The highway and transit cooperative research programs have much in common. Their basic approach is to rely on the owners and operators to identify common problems and prioritize research projects to address them. Both emphasize research results that have identifiable applications, such as the development of guidelines, product evaluation manuals, and handbooks of best practice. The programs differ in some important ways, most notably in how they are financed. Program similarities and differences are described below. Each program has advantages and disadvantages that deserve consideration in examining options for an airport cooperative research program.

One reason highway agencies conduct their own research is to find efficient solutions to pressing problems. However, the results of research in one state can have application elsewhere, since most highway problems are not unique.

As research needs increased following the advent of the Interstate highway program in the 1950s, the state-by-state approach to research became less practical. Through their national association, the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO),¹ state highway agencies had long worked together and with other relevant organizations (such as the Bureau of Public Roads, the National Association of County Officials, and the American Society of Civil Engineers) to set uniform guidelines for all aspects of highway design, construction, and operations. However, they lacked a systematic and ongoing means of undertaking research in support of these efforts.

An AASHO survey of state highway agencies during the late 1950s revealed more than 100 specific problems shared by many states concerning topics ranging from highway finance and safety to design and traffic operations (HRB 1960). At the time, federal law required state highway agencies to devote at least 1.5 percent of their annual federal highway aid to research and planning. Consequently, a great deal of highway-related research was undertaken, but with much duplication of effort, a wide range of quality, and limited dissemination of results. Recognizing these shortcomings, AASHO often helped states pool resources to coordinate some of this research, but each instance required the negotiation of new cooperative agreements and structures for overseeing the research.² The survey of research needs convinced AASHO and its member states of the value of creating a continuing means of pooling resources for research on a national basis.

NCHRP was established in 1962 as a result of an agreement among AASHO, the Bureau of Public Roads [later to become the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)], and the National Research Council’s Highway Research Board [later to become the Transportation Research Board (TRB)]. The agreement called for participating states to allow the federal government to withhold distribution of 5 percent of each state’s 1.5 percent share of federal-aid funds that must be used for research and planning. The funds would be transferred to the National Research Council, which AASHO described as having “recognized objectivity and understanding of research practices,” to manage the program (AASHO 1964, 116–119). Individual states could elect to participate or not, and the agreement would have to be re-signed every year on a state-by-state basis.

Each contributing state was given the opportunity to submit problem statements to AASHO’s Standing Committee on Research (SCOR), which was composed entirely of state highway agency representatives. On the basis of these statements and those from other AASHO technical committees and the Bureau of Public Roads, SCOR would select the problems that would be the subject of NCHRP research projects that year. Each project needed to be approved by two-thirds of the states participating in the program.

The National Research Council was charged with administering the program by convening expert panels for each project. The panels drew from specialists in universities, industry, and predominantly the state highway agencies themselves. Project panels were tasked with defining the project scope, soliciting and selecting qualified researchers to perform the work, and reviewing the research in progress and the end results. Research results were to be published in a series of reports made available to the public. The first formal NCHRP report, “Evaluation Methods of Replacement of Deteriorated Concrete in Structures,” was published in 1964.

NCHRP’s purpose and its methods of financing, governance, and management are fundamentally the same today as they were following its creation. The program is still intended to provide products and procedures that are readily applicable to current or emerging problems. A cursory review of publication titles indicates as much: many products are described as “guidelines,” “manuals,” “handbooks,” and “evaluation methods.” The typical project is completed within 2 to 3 years and is funded at $300,000 to $400,000, although some are smaller than $100,000 and a few have funding in excess of $600,000.

Aspects of the program that have changed since its inception are the variety of research results and the means by which they are disseminated. Since its first report nearly 40 years ago, NCHRP has published nearly 500 reports in 25 problem areas, ranging from pavement design to transportation planning. In addition, the program has published more than 300 “synthesis” reports that are based on surveys of highway practice; more than 300 research results “digests,” including a special series on legal issues; and more than 50 “Web” and CD documents that contain specialized information and software applications. The digests and Web documents are intended to promote early awareness of project results to encourage implementation.

In the early 1990s, NCHRP joined with FHWA in setting aside approximately $1,000,000 per year for projects in its IDEA (“ideas deserving exploratory analysis”) program. This program funds exploratory projects based on the ideas of innovators and entrepreneurs; the aim is to spur the application of new and unconventional technologies and processes to current highway problems. This is the only part of NCHRP that is open to unsolicited proposals. Currently, all IDEA funding is provided in the NCHRP budget.

Table 3-1 provides summary information on NCHRP project areas and products, as derived from annual progress reports to the state sponsors and the general public. These progress reports describe ongoing NCHRP work as well as the results of completed projects. The progress reports describe the end products of each project and give examples of their use in the field.

Funding for NCHRP continues to be based on voluntary participation by states. The contribution is now 5.5 percent of the 2 percent share of total federal aid that must be devoted to research or planning activity. Since 1962, individual states have elected to withhold contributions to NCHRP in only a handful of instances, and all have rejoined the program within 1 to 2 years. FHWA has also remained an active participant. Although it does not have a vote in the programming of funds, it appoints liaison representatives to SCOR and other AASHTO committees, and FHWA experts serve on all NCHRP project panels and can submit problems for consideration.

The NCHRP annual budget, which is based on a percentage of federal appropriations for highways, has grown with the increase in federal aid over time. The program’s annual funding has risen from about $15 million in the early 1990s to $31.5 million in FY 2002. About 79 percent of the annual program budget is allocated to research contracts, 16 percent to program staffing and related costs, and the remaining 5 percent to panelist travel and report publication and dissemination expenses.

This budget enabled NCHRP to program 43 major research projects (each funded at $200,000 or more) for FY 2003. The projects were drawn from 121 problem statements submitted to the program. The program also used $9 million in funds for 17 smaller research projects and ongoing activities.

The fact that it has been funded by all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) on a voluntary basis for more than 40 years suggests that NCHRP has achieved success in addressing the research needs of the nation’s

highway agencies. Some of the key characteristics of the program’s governance, finance, and management approaches that appear to have accounted for this success are described below.

• Because the program is directed exclusively by state highway agencies, it remains focused on the practical needs of users and on disseminating the results in accessible formats.

• Each project is selected by a cross section of state highway agencies and is subject to the approval of two-thirds of the participating agencies. This arrangement ensures that the research program addresses problems shared by highway agencies. Parochial problems that are best addressed locally seldom find support, and emerging problems in the field can be identified quickly and investigated.

• Because they help develop the research agenda, state highway agencies are often willing to assist in its conduct (e.g., by providing test beds and participating in surveys), and they are keenly aware of and eager to apply the results.

• Because they voluntarily finance the program, state sponsors are committed to ensuring that the program produces useful results, that it is responsive to their needs, and that it operates efficiently. By contributing funds to NCHRP after the federal-aid apportionments have taken place, the states have effectively insulated the program from efforts at the federal level to exert control over the research agenda.

• Broad-based financing ensures that research will address a wide range of needs and that no single interest can dominate the agenda.

• Though funds are provided voluntarily by states, the federal-aid research apportionment provides a stable base from which to derive this funding. The financing structure has enabled the program to grow over time to keep pace with the overall federal highway program.

• The contract-based approach to research, as opposed to the in-house approach, allows the program to retain a high degree of flexibility and to limit overhead. For instance, the program is not committed to pursuing a

particular area of highway research as a result of past investments in specialized laboratory facilities or development of in-house research expertise. The program can therefore respond quickly to the changing needs and priorities of its sponsors.

• Contract research prompts competition among research institutions for NCHRP projects, which promotes greater efficiencies in the program and the ability to fund more projects each year. Approximately 36 percent of problem statements (43 of 121) submitted by sponsoring highway agencies were selected for major research projects in FY 2003.

• The use of volunteer experts on technical panels to guide and oversee the research enhances the credibility of the program and its results. Because special panels are convened for each project and are disbanded afterward, the panelists remain focused on completing the project and developing a useful product.

• The program is managed by an independent organization devoted exclusively to research, which helps keep the program focused on producing quality results. The independence of the research organization is helpful in attracting volunteer experts to serve on project panels and in providing a neutral venue for the views of all participants. This adds to the acceptance of the research findings.

Transit systems tend to be discrete entities that serve single communities or larger metropolitan areas. Unlike highways, they are seldom linked to one another to form broader regional or national transportation systems. Partly as a result of this orientation, the federal government viewed transit systems, and thus transit-related research, as local and state prerogatives. Not until the late 1960s did the Federal Transit Administration (FTA, then known as the Urban Mass Transportation Administration) start conducting significant amounts of research, coincident with its new role in providing transit planning and capital assistance. Research helped the agency develop the technical knowledge necessary to guide its growing financial contribution to transit infrastructure and equipment. Moreover, federal policy makers began to recognize that efficient and well-used transit systems could help the nation

achieve other goals, such as improving air quality, reducing highway congestion and energy use, and providing low-income workers with transportation to jobs.

At the time, FTA was spending a large percentage of its research budget on the development and demonstration of advanced technologies, including such futuristic concepts as moving sidewalks, automated guideways, and personalized rapid transit. Meanwhile, transit systems across the country were experiencing a growing need for research as their aging fleets and infrastructure—upgraded with the help of federal funds during the 1960s and 1970s—became more costly to operate and maintain. Rather than seeking revolutionary changes, transit agencies were interested in finding ways to improve, even if only incrementally, existing technologies and practice.

A 1987 TRB study committee consisting of transit operators and other research and industry experts noted the absence of problem-solving research in the transit industry. The committee concluded that new mechanisms were needed for such work to be undertaken in a continuing and concerted fashion (TRB 1987). It recommended that an operator-guided research program with many of the same characteristics as NCHRP be created and that transit operators take the lead in setting the program’s research agenda through majority representation on the program’s governing board. The committee called for a cooperative research program that would be financed from a mandatory 1/2 percent set-aside of federal transit funding; would emphasize applied, problem-solving research; and would fill the gaps in FTA’s technology-oriented R&D program.

With the collective support of the transit industry reached through the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Congress authorized funding for a national Transit Cooperative Research Program in the Inter-modal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA; Public Law 102-240). The act called for the program to be governed by an independent board and managed by TRB.

In following through on the provisions of the act, FTA charged APTA with appointing TCRP’s independent governing board under the auspices of the association’s nonprofit Transit Development Corporation. Named the Transit Oversight and Project Selection (TOPS) Committee, the 24-member board consisted of 16 members appointed from public transit agencies and 8 appointed from transit suppliers, consultants, and universities. The committee was given responsibility to solicit research needs, formulate the annual

research portfolio, and monitor project and program progress. TRB was tasked with managing the program in a manner similar to its management of NCHRP—by convening independent technical panels to select and oversee the work of outside contract researchers.

In authorizing TCRP, Congress originally specified funding for the program equivalent to 0.3 percent of total federal transit funding during the 6-year authorization period. Had this funding scheme been implemented, it would have provided the program with nearly $90 million in total, ranging from $8.9 million the first year (FY 1992) to $21 million in the last year of ISTEA authority (FY 1997). Congress appropriated $8.9 million for the program’s first year. However, in subsequent years, it disregarded the original percentage formula and continued to appropriate about $8 million per year to the program. Appropriations over the 6 years were equivalent to about 55 percent of the original amount authorized.

TOPS organized the program into nine research fields ranging from transit operations to human resources and administration. It then held a series of workshops to identify and screen candidate research problems. TOPS allowed submissions of problem statements from all interested parties, including FTA, universities, and transit suppliers and consultants. This was a departure from the practice of NCHRP, which solicits problem statements only from state highway agencies, AASHTO committees, and FHWA. During its first 6-year authorizing period, TOPS received more than 800 project problem statements, and it was able to fund about 12 percent.

In the same manner as NCHRP, TCRP projects were designed to produce full reports, abbreviated digests of research results, and survey-based syntheses of practice. The first TCRP report, “Artificial Intelligence for Transit Railcar Diagnostics,” was published in 1994, and 138 reports of various kinds were produced during the program’s first 6-year authorization.

In 1998, Congress reauthorized TCRP for fiscal years 1998 to 2003.³ In doing so, it formally abandoned the idea of a percentage-based funding formula and, instead, set annual funding at “not less than $8,250,000.” Hence, in real terms the program continued to experience a decline in funding, which has fallen by more than 30 percent after adjustment for inflation since 1992.

Moreover, the federal funding for TCRP was appropriated as a line item in the overall FTA research program. Therefore, FTA has responsibility for distributing the funds to TCRP through an annual grant agreement. As a line item, the TCRP funds have been susceptible to diversion through congressional earmarking. Because distribution of the funds is controlled by FTA, the agency could influence the program and its agenda. Much of FTA’s own research budget is earmarked by Congress, and thus TCRP offers a means for the agency to shift some research toward its own pressing needs. Viewing TCRP as a federal research program, FTA sought successfully for its administrator to become a voting member of TOPS in 1998.

Despite growing federal involvement in the program, TCRP remains an industry-driven and -guided enterprise. Without the active support and involvement of the transit industry, the program would not exist. Since 1992, TCRP has received approximately 1,600 problem statements, and about 32 percent of these statements have originated from public transit agencies. The second- and third-largest sources of project ideas are transit consultants (16 percent) and universities (13 percent). FTA has contributed about 10 percent. Problem statements are also routinely submitted by TRB standing committees, APTA committees, and state transportation agencies. For the most part, TCRP’s open process for soliciting problem statements has proved successful in generating a diverse selection of project ideas.

Since its beginning 10 years ago, TCRP has funded more than 300 research projects. Table 3-2 summarizes the research output, which included, as of November 2002, 90 published reports, 70 digests, and 45 syntheses of practice. Like NCHRP, TCRP emphasizes applied research, and its report titles often contain the words “handbook,” “user manual,” and “guidelines.” It has also diversified its products and its means of dissemination to include Web documents, software, and CDs. Like NCHRP, it sponsors an IDEA program to encourage innovative thinking on transit problems.

TCRP’s $8.25 million budget permitted funding of 10 new major projects (each in excess of $200,000) in FY 2003. This represents about 12 percent of the 81 problem statements submitted, compared with funding of about 36 percent of problem statements submitted to NCHRP. Concerned about the relatively small share of problems capable of being funded by the program, the APTA Board of Directors is urging Congress to increase funding for TCRP in the next 6-year reauthorization of the federal government’s surface transportation program to $27.93 million in FY 2009 (TEA-21 Reauthorization

Recommendations: An Investment in America, September 22, 2002). At that level, program funding would represent about 0.25 percent of projected federal transit expenditures, compared with about 0.12 percent of such expenditures today.

As the program has matured, certain characteristics of TCRP have proved crucial in meeting the research needs of the transit industry—while some others have presented challenges.

• The program is governed by a diverse oversight and project selection board consisting of transit operators, suppliers, consultants, university professors, transit labor representatives, and the FTA administrator. Transit operators are a majority of the board’s members. The 14 general managers who serve on the board come from large and small, urban and rural, and rail and bus transit systems. The board’s diversity has enabled the program to attract wide-ranging participation from the transit industry, and it has enhanced the quality and quantity of problem statements. The transit agency majority ensures that the problems selected for research are responsive to the needs of practitioners.

• The diverse governing board, and its reach into the transit community, has heightened the visibility and credibility of the program within the industry, which increases the prospects of the application of research results in the field. The board’s diversity has become a distinct asset.

• Because it is financed through annual congressional appropriations, TCRP has been susceptible to earmarking and diversion of funds for other FTA purposes. The program’s budget has also been constrained, which has limited the share of problem statements funded as major research projects. However, the single federal source of funding relieves the program of the administrative burden of eliciting contribution agreements each year from the hundreds, or even thousands, of individual transit agencies across the country.

• The federal appropriation for the program may diminish the “sense of ownership” of the program among transit operators. Nevertheless, as a

practical matter, federal funding may have broadened the transit community’s participation in and commitment to the program. Federal funding ensures greater participation of the diverse industry. A program funded through transit agencies would likely exclude the many smaller systems with limited ability to contribute funds. No single sector of the industry can dominate the program’s research agenda by exerting financial control.

The way the program and projects are managed is basically the same for TCRP as for NCHRP: research is contracted out through a competitive process, technical experts are convened to choose the contractor and guide the work, and the program is managed by an independent research organization with expertise and experience in disseminating results to practitioners. The emphasis is on producing credible research results in an efficient manner and with maximum accessibility by users.

NCHRP and TCRP are structured to find research solutions to the shared problems of highway and transit operators, respectively. Each attempts to do so in the same basic way (see Box 3-1). In the case of NCHRP, state highway agencies cooperate by identifying research needs and voluntarily pooling funds to address them. In the case of TCRP, the federal government provides the funding for the research program, while transit operators and other stakeholders in the transit industry cooperate in identifying research needs and participating in research projects.

The two programs are guided by practitioners, who identify shared research needs, ensure that the research agenda is focused on meeting these needs and producing useful results, and assist with the conduct of the research and dissemination of results. Both are financed by setting aside funds for research that might otherwise have been distributed to operators for other purposes. Such a funding philosophy provides operators with a sense of ownership of the research program and commits them to the production of practical results. The programs are also designed to produce research results that are credible, of high quality, and responsive to the needs of users, primarily through the use of expert panels that guide the work of contract researchers selected on a competitive basis for each research project. Approximately three-quarters of each program’s budget is spent on the conduct of research

by the contractors, while the remainder covers the expenses associated with expert panel meetings, program administration and secretariat support, and report publication and dissemination.

The two programs differ in other important respects, mainly related to the specifics of their funding. Differences in funding mechanisms have had important effects on the growth, stability, and autonomy of the programs. NCHRP is financed by the 50 state highway agencies (plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico), who voluntarily contribute a percentage of their federal-aid funds each year. This contribution takes place after the federal funds are appropriated, which gives the state sponsors exclusive control over NCHRP programming.⁴ The percentage-based funding formula has allowed NCHRP to grow over time at a rate commensurate with the growth in the overall federal-aid highway program. TCRP, by comparison, serves a much more dispersed transit industry, consisting of thousands of operators, hundreds of which receive federal funds in any given year. While NCHRP funding has risen to enable the program to fund research to address more than one-third of problem statements submitted by sponsoring highway agencies each year, TCRP’s budget, which is determined at the federal level, has remained static and capable of funding only about 10 percent of problem statements submitted by the transit industry each year. Collecting voluntary contributions from these operators would be far more complicated and costly than collecting contributions from state highway agencies. The alternative of relying on Congress to set aside federal-aid funds each year has subjected the program to greater volatility in funding and to greater influence by FTA in determining how the funds are to be used.

The programs demonstrate that careful consideration must be given at the outset to how a cooperative research program is structured. A single model will not serve the research needs of all transportation modes, even though they may share certain structural and functional elements. Initial decisions about how the program is to be governed, funded, and managed are crucial. TCRP and its funding experience should be carefully considered as a possible model for structuring an airport cooperative research program. Airports are similar to transit agencies in two important respects: there are many of them and they vary greatly in size and resources. The voluntary contribution

of program funds by operators—and the program control that such funding provides—is likely to be as difficult for airport operators to achieve as it has been for transit operators.

AASHO American Association of State Highway Officials

HRB Highway Research Board

TRB Transportation Research Board

AASHO. 1964. AASHO: The First 50 Years. Washington, D.C.

HRB. 1960. Special Report 55: Highway Research in the United States: Needs, Expenditures and Applications: 1959. National Research Council, Washington, D.C.

TRB. 1987. Special Report 213: Research for Public Transit: New Directions. National Research Council, Washington, D.C.