Strategic Highway Research Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life -- Special Report 260 (2001) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 13-31
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From page 13... ...
Some of these factors are described here 1Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, Public Law 105-178, Section 5112, "Study of a Future Strategic Highway Research Program." 2See Study Committee Biographical Information at the end of this report for biographies of the committee members.
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From page 14... ...
For example, population growth rates in rural areas are approaching growth rates in the major metropolitan 3 Special acknowledgment is due to Alan Pisarski and Martin Wachs for their discussion of these issues at the committee's June 2000 meeting. The ideas in this section are synthesized from their work and other sources listed in the Additional Sources at the end of the chapter.
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At the same time, freight movement overall is increasingly intermodal, placing particular importance on intermodal connections that almost always involve a highway component. This is especially true for global trade, in which connections must be made at air and water ports and land borders.
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in 1987: "A sustainable condition for this planet is one in which there is stability for both social and physical systems, achieved through meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." 6 The Federal Highway Administration defines three fundamental environmental justice principles: (a) to avoid, minimize, or mitigate disproportionately high and adverse human health and environmental effects, including social and economic effects, on minority populations and low-income populations; (b)
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From page 17... ...
At the same time, many states are handling special, large-scale projects that require whole new ways of doing business almost overnight. In all cases, state DOTs must address a broader set of issues -- engineering, environmental, economic, financial, technological, and social -- in all their activities and decision making.
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The traditional user fees, derived largely from per-gallon charges on fuel, are potentially threatened by the increasing energy efficiency of highway vehicles, the special tax treatment accorded alternative fuels, and the fact that the user fees are not linked to inflation. Proposals for addressing this issue (such as indexing fuel taxes to inflation or charging a fee based on miles traveled)
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Respondents favored improvements to traffic flow, safety, and pavement conditions as areas in which to focus resources. They also supported the following approaches to overcoming traffic delays: using more durable paving materials, making repairs during off-peak hours, reducing repair times, improving traffic signal timing, clearing accidents quickly, and adding travel lanes.
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Advances in information and communication technologies offer opportunities for significant improvements in highway performance. Such technologies include computers, the Global Positioning System, cellular telephones and other telecommunications technologies, and geographic information systems.
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Equipment and sensing technologies also have promising highway applications. Automated and robotic equipment can reduce the need to place highway personnel in the dangerous situations sometimes encountered in bridge inspection or maintenance and repair of facilities that are open to traffic.
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Frequently, respondents and committee members cited their own states' customer surveys, as well as input received through public involvement activities at the state level. These sources of customer input support all four strategic focus areas but reveal in particular customer interest in safety, aesthetics, additional capacity, and environmental and social concerns, which is reflected in the safety and capacity strategic focus areas.
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The committee considered as part of its responsibility making judgments about future needs since the proposed research is intended to produce results for eventual implementation. In addition, the renewal and reliability research programs described in Chapters 4 and 6, respectively, include identification of specific requirements for various types of highway customers among the recommended research tasks.
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From page 24... ...
For example, the proposed research on highway renewal and system reliability includes identifying customer performance requirements, relating these requirements to system performance, and quantifying and assessing user impacts. The proposed work on highway travel time reliability also includes study of the institutional issues that are so critical to highway operations, especially with regard to incident management and response.
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The programs also focus on differing time frames: state DOTs tend to solve very short-term problems, while NCHRP and FHWA address issues that have relatively longer-term horizons. The types of work typically conducted differ as well: states do the most applied work, involving technology transfer and addressing state-specific operational needs; NCHRP addresses issues that are being faced by a large number of states; FHWA covers a broad range of disciplines and technologies focused on issues of national concern; and universities perform independent research, as well as research in cooperation with the other programs.
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The outreach process had three main objectives: to identify strategic highway needs that can be advanced by research, to develop a research program that can address those needs, and to build support for the program by achieving consensus on needs and by soliciting stakeholder involvement in the process of program development. The first two objectives pertain to the types of information sought directly by the committee; the third is a more indirect, but nonetheless critical, result of an effective outreach program.
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Nearly 50 presentations on the F-SHRP development effort were made to various stakeholder groups, and 25 presentations on strategic highway needs were made by stakeholders at committee meetings. An interactive website was also established so that input could be provided electronically and stakeholders could track the study's progress.
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From page 28... ...
These criteria were used at each stage of the outreach process: to develop strategic focus areas in Stage 1; to narrow down the specific research topics in Stage 2; and to guide the development of the research agenda in Stage 3. The major steps in the development of the strategic focus areas and research topics are documented in Appendix B
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From page 29... ...
A brief review of the results of the committee's study, including a general description of the overall proposed research program, its strategic vision and focus areas, and the four component research programs, is presented in Chapter 3. In Chapters 4 through 7 the component research programs are described in more detail, including the challenges that must be addressed for each, a general outline of the research tasks, and other considerations for the effective conduct and implementation of the research.
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2000. Analysis of the Future Transportation Environment and the Impli cations for State DOTs.
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. Perspectives from Transportation Research Board Standing Committees.
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