State transportation agencies are increasingly tasked with doing more with less in managing highway transportation networks. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 923: Workforce Optimization Workbook for Transportation Construction Projects provides state transportation agencies with guidance to identify their construction staffing needs and how to best a...

Staff from smaller airports typically lack specialized expertise in the negotiation and development of airport property or the resources to hire consultants. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 213: Estimating Market Value and Establishing Market Rent at Small Airports provides airport management, policymakers, and staff a resource for developing and leasing airp...

There are opportunities and challenges in implementing public–private partnerships at airports. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's Conference Proceedings on the Web 26: Public–Private Partnerships: What Are the Lessons Learned? is a summary of the presentations and discussions at an ACRP Insight Event held July 10-11, 2019, in Washington, DC.  These in-depth, face-to-face gathe...

Examples of transformational technologies—many are discussed in technical and popular media—include wireless telecommunications, shared vehicles, connected vehicles, fully autonomous vehicles, alternative-fuel vehicles, smart cities and communities, big data analytics, internet-of-things, as well as UAVs or drones, 3-D printing, and more. Public agencies face significant challenges continuing t...

Airports are using tools that help them identify risks within their environment. Most airports are providing a means to report risk. Smaller airports use low-cost options such as email, a 24/7 phone number, or a suggestion box. Larger airports have embraced safety management or enterprise risk management programs that include more expensive reporting and tracking systems. The TRB Airport Cooper...

The TRB Centennial Book is available for purchase in ebook or print format. In The Transportation Research Board, 1920–2020: Everyone Interested Is Invited , author 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...

The use of alternative contracting methods (ACMs) has accelerated the delivery of highway design and construction projects. These changes came about through efforts of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and state agencies over the last 30 years. This pre-publication draft of the TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 939: Guidebooks for Post-Award Contr...

The transportation industry has a need for contract administration guidance. This pre-publication draft of the TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 939: Guidebooks for Post-Award Contract Administration for Highway Projects Delivered Using Alternative Contracting Methods, Volume 2: Construction Manager–General Contractor Delivery provides a practitioner’s gu...

The transportation industry has a need for contract administration guidance. This pre-publication draft of the TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 939: Guidebooks for Post-Award Contract Administration for Highway Projects Delivered Using Alternative Contracting Methods, Volume 1: Design–Build Delivery provides a practitioner’s guide for construction admini...

Transit-priority projects seek to improve transit service quality and mobility and to increase transit ridership. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's TCRP Research Report 208: Strategic Communications to Improve Support for Transit-Priority Projects: Report and Toolkit presents and analyzes the communication approaches used by cities and transit agencies in the delivery of transit-pr...

The full issue of the July-August edition of the TR News is now available. This issue  focuses on types of trespassing in passenger and freight rail: the importance of the issue, possible strategies to prevent trespassing, and effects on the rail transportation system. Articles present an overview of the prevalence of trespassing deaths and address a variety of preventive strategies and te...

Transportation agencies face a complex set of challenges as they make cross-asset resource allocation decisions. Such decisions entail deciding how much to invest in an agency’s roads, bridges, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and other traffic and safety assets to achieve a variety of competing objectives, such as improving pavement and bridge conditions, increasing mobility, and enha...

Transportation agencies across the United States are afflicted with aging infrastructure, unstable funding, changing performance expectations, and programs that need updating to meet future demand effectively and efficiently. Yet, these agencies are charged with ensuring ongoing alignment between the life cycle cost, capacity, extent, condition, and function of a piece of infrastructure or a pr...

The U.S. Navy has many unique naval engineering needs that demand a highly capable and robust U.S. naval engineering enterprise. In seeking an independent review of the unclassified elements of its National Naval Responsibilities—Naval Engineering (NNR-NE) program, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) asked for recommendations on ways to ensure the program meets the many naval engineering re...

The Wisconsin DOT issues both single- and multi-trip permits for Oversize–Overweight (OSOW) vehicles. As the number of OSOW vehicle permits issued in Wisconsin have increased in recent years, the management and analysis of OSOW permit data has become more labor-intensive and time-consuming. This "Research Pays Off" feature in  TR News edition 324 (November-December 2019), by Hani Titi, Nic...

U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) ship stability regulations governing the ability of a vessel to return to an upright position after being disturbed is the focus of a new TRB publication, Review and Update of U.S. Coast Guard Vessel Stability Regulations and Guidance. The authors advise the USCG on how it can make its stability regulations more usable and complete in meeting the requirements of differen...

This article is adapted from The Transportation Research Board, 1920–2020: Everyone Interested Is Invited , to be published by the National Academies Press in January 2020. TRB can be best understood as an infrastructure—one that people purposely designed, carefully constructed, and devotedly maintained to share and strengthen knowledge about transportation. The core missions and structures tha...

The November-December 2019 issue of TR News - with a focus on climate change resilience - is available in hard copy and digital copy for subscribers. For those who are not subscribers, the table of contents is available. Other feature articles in the issue include ones on the history of both TRB and transportation in general and a preview of the TRB Annual Meeting slated for January in Washingt...

Commuter rail services bring travelers from the rural and suburban fringes to the inner neighborhoods and central business districts of many large metropolitan areas in the U.S. The isolated nature of these rural and suburban commuter rail parking lots makes it difficult and expensive to secure and safely operate these transit assets. Further, as the more than two dozen commuter rail systems in...

Self-driving cars, rising temperatures and sea levels, increasingly strong weather events, changing citizen preferences, and innovations in technologies that are revolutionizing purchasing behavior, social interaction, financial transactions, communications, and travel—the transportation world is changing very rapidly. Transportation Research Circular E-C256: Managing Transportation Systems in ...

Recent studies show that organizations with the most diverse workforces realize better decision-making and more efficiency, innovation, and profitability than do their less-diverse peers. This article in TR News Issue 323 (September/October 2019) details demographic trends shaping the nation’s workforce—the large millennial population, the rise of neurodiverse workers, and dramatically increase...

More airport operations/management academic programs at both the high school and community college levels would help the airport industry. With baby boomers currently reaching retirement age at the rate of 10,000 each day, and later generations much smaller in size, new employees are not entering the workforce swiftly enough to replace those leaving because of retirement, illness, and other com...

The U.S. transportation system is developed, operated, and managed by private and public enterprises and, as of 2012, employs approximately 4.3 million people. This number is even larger when it accounts for people whose jobs are entirely dependent on the transportation system, from delivering fresh lettuce year-round to a fast response to a fire alarm to the reliable delivery of children to sc...

About $1.5 trillion will be spent globally on airport infrastructure by 2030, a ccording to the International Air Transport Association.  Most of that enormous amount of money will be spent on projects that must be constructed without disrupting airport operations. Given the focus on schedule and on the cost of failing to complete the construction during the periods of planned outages, the...

Access to relevant, precise, and timely information is crucial for a pleasant experience in air travel. Travelers with cognitive and sensory disabilities, aging travelers, and travelers with limited English proficiency need alternative approaches to those provided for general travelers for accessing and communicating air travel information. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Sy...

As a reliever airport for the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix–Mesa Gateway Airport must keep track of information for nearly 300,000 aircraft operations and 1.4 million passengers a year. To meet this challenge, the airport developed an innovative, digitally connected solution with the help of ACRP Research Report 182: Guidancefor Planning, Design, and Operationsof Airport Com...

Environmental regulations have long required airports to undertake review of many actions associated with planning and development. More recently, airports have embraced sustainability as a means for ensuring the long-term viability and community benefits of their facilities. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 209: Integrating Sustainability Planning and the Env...

The May–June 2019 issue of TR News addresses women and gender in transportation. Developed by the TRB Standing Committee on Women’s Issues in Transportation, this theme issue explores topics including statistics about the negative effects of women’s unequitable transportation access on the global economy; women and transit; a case study from Austria on women’s travel constraints; and the challe...

Estimates indicate that more than 14 million jobs—about 11% of civilian jobs in the United States—are related to infrastructure. Transportation has the potential to be a major U.S. job creator with projections to add 417,000 net jobs from 2012 to 2022. An additional 4.2 million workers will need to be hired to fill vacancies created by people leaving the transportation workforce. Transportation...

Recent federal legislation has established requirements for agencies to set performance targets and report on safety, pavement, and bridge conditions; transit asset state of good repair; system performance; freight; and mobile source emissions. These requirements have resulted in increased visibility and attention to Transportation Performance Management (TPM) and increased awareness of the imp...