The Essential Federal Role in Highway Research and Innovation (2015) / Chapter Skim
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4 Current and Future FHWA Role
4 Current and Future FHWA Role
Pages 32-40
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illing research gaps and addressing issues with national impli F cations; and 3. upporting technology transfer (including training and educa S tion)
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FHWA is under less pressure than are state DOT research programs to deliver products to solve immediate problems and is better able to invest for the long term in search of larger payoffs that serve national goals. The Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP)
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LTPP data has contributed to more cost-effective highway pavements by providing more realistic pavement design models; improved understanding of how and why pavements perform as they do; high-quality data on which to base pavement management and re habilitation decisions; guidance to support selection of the most cost-effective pavement design features for a given set of design constraints; and a knowledge base on which to develop educational curricula for future generations of pavement practitioners." 2 ee Feldman summary of research breakthroughs in rigid pavement design at http://www. S trb.org/AboutTRB/KeyResearchAchievements.aspx?
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and a series of technical tools, collectively referred to as "SafetyAnalyst," that assist states in identifying and prioritizing roadway safety improvements through use of the latest findings from highway safety research. In 1999, highway safety professionals conceived the idea of developing a manual, analogous to the Highway Capacity Manual, that would bring together the latest scientific knowledge about road design elements (e.g., number of lanes, median width, intersection control features)
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. Supporting Technology Transfer The success of R&D in highway transportation is measured not by numbers of reports published but by the practical implementation of research results.
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In support of all of its technology transfer efforts, FHWA develops curricula and offers extensive training to state DOT and other highway agency staff through the National Highway Institute and fosters innovation in local government and tribal transportation departments through local technical assistance programs. During the waning years of SAFETEA-LU, FHWA began planning, in concert with AASHTO, for the deployment of technologies emerging from SHRP 2.
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They include increased levels of highway travel associated with population and economic growth on a system that is barely expanding and the need to renew, replace, and make more resilient a vast aging infrastructure built up over the past several decades. Meeting these challenges will require transferring new knowledge from basic research to practical highway applications, taking advantage of new technologies to address congestion and safety, and assisting states and local governments with implementation.
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As mentioned in Chapter 3, SHRP 2 has recently concluded its 7-year program of R&D and produced dozens of innovations and fresh approaches for renewing infrastructure more rapidly with less disruption to motorists, providing additional capacity while avoiding harm to the environment, improving travel time reliability, and improving safety. The National Research Council committee charged by Congress with reporting on implementation of SHRP 2 technologies identified FHWA as the one organization "best positioned to administer SHRP 2 implementation" because of its experience with implementation of products from the first SHRP and its close relationship to the states (TRB 2009b)
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This allows the agency to conduct ad vanced research to harvest breakthroughs in basic research for application in transportation; conduct long-term pave ment and bridge experiments to collect necessary data to improve infrastructure performance; and carry out complex, long-term R&D with the automobile industry and infrastruc ture owners in the connected vehicle initiative, which will help avoid vast numbers of crashes in the future. • HWA, with its national perspective, can lead states in the de F velopment and transfer of tools and processes, such as Safe tyAnalyst, DDIs, and pricing of high-occupancy lanes, that improve safety and system capacity at less cost.
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