What's New in Law

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Legal Research Digest 34: Airport Public Health Preparedness and Response: Legal Rights, Powers, and Duties addresses the legal issues concerning the measures to detect communicable diseases, regulations to control communicable diseases, methods for decontamination, emergency legal preparedness, privacy, and potential sources of liability. This ...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) has released a request for proposals to provide a summary of pertinent laws and practices related to achieving a state of good repair for transportation assets throughout the United States. Proposals are due September 25, 2018.

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) has released a request for proposals to provide advice and checklists for transportation agencies and their attorneys to consult in developing, improving, applying, and enforcing their own codes of conduct of their own vehicles and facilities. Proposals are due September 20, 2018

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) has released a request for proposals to produce a legal language style and drafting guide for safety projects. This guide should be developed by lawyers with a background in tort liability involving organizations that use engineering documents to design, construct, and/or maintain facilities, products, or systems that are often the sub...

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has released a report that provides an overview of following-too-closely (FTC) statutes and regulations in order to identify specific changes for FTC rule exemptions for automated vehicle (AV) platoons. Although platoons of AVs are not explicitly prohibited in most states, many current FTC statutes would not allow platooning AVs.

TRB conducted a webinar on Tuesday, August 14, 2018, from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM ET that featured research from the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP)’s Legal Research Digest 50 : Public Transit Emergency Preparedness Against Ebola and Other Infectious Diseases: Legal Issues. This webinar examined legal issues that transit agencies may face when an infectious disease epidemic arises. Prese...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) has released a request for proposals to examine state and federal constitutional provisions and applicable federal and state laws and regulations for using a customer facility charge (CFC) at airports. These charges typically are applied to pay for the capital, and often, operating costs of a consolidated rental car facility at the airport. In a...

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) has released a request for proposals to provide a single source of information concerning airports’ right and obligation to accommodate federal agencies. The research should include a review of federal laws, grant assurances, relevant federal agency orders, policies, and guidance, and any case law on the rights and obligations of host airports t...

The Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) is soliciting ideas on candidate topics for the FY 2018 Legal Studies Program. The TCRP Legal Studies Program reports on legal issues associated with transit and intermodal law. Each document is intended to provide transit attorneys with authoritative, well-researched, specific information that is limited in scope. The studies focus on legal issue...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) is soliciting ideas on candidate topics for the FY 2019 Legal Studies Program. The NCHRP Legal Research Digest series reports on timely legal issues and problems significant to state departments of transportation. Ideas for study topics for the FY 2019 program will be accepted until September 17, 2018.

The National Conference of State Legislatures have released a report that examines traffic safety bills implemented in 2017. This report identifies bills related to occupant protection, impaired driving, driver licensing, speeding, driver characteristics and behavior, and more.

The Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University has released a report that summarizes how personal transportation devices (PTDs) are regulated through the United States. PTDs include small wheeled devices such as kick scooters and electric skateboards.

In 2012, Congress gave the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) the authority to establish a new comprehensive framework to oversee the safety of the country’s public transit systems. As part of that framework, state and local transit agencies are required to engage in safety planning. In the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015, Congress asked the National Academies of Scie...

The Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) is seeking potential legal research topics for the Fiscal Year 2019 ACRP Legal Research Program. The closing date for submitting legal research topics is September 7, 2018. The preferred method for submitting an ACRP legal research topic is by using our online proposal form . The ACRP Legal Research Program is a project within the ACRP that addres...

Maximize the visibility of your organization with a patron, sponsorship, presentation, or advertising opportunity at the TRB Annual Meeting, January 13-17, 2019, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in Washington, D.C. With promotional opportunities at all levels of investment, organizations and companies can leverage the 2019 meeting to reach leaders and professionals looking to fulf...

TRB’s Legal Resources Group is sponsoring the 58th Annual Workshop on Transportation Law from July 20-25, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio. Each year the workshop attracts 150 to 200 lawyers, engineers, and transportation planners. The workshop provides opportunities to meet and hear from federal, state and local government transportation attorneys and private transportation practitioners from around th...

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 515: Practices for Preventing Roadway Departures identifies and summarizes practices being used by state departments of transportation (DOTs) to prevent roadway departure crashes and to identify the data-driven advantages and disadvantages of these practices. More than half of all traffic fatalities result from roadway depart...

TRB turns 100 on November 11, 2020. To commemorate this milestone, TRB has a yearlong celebration planned that will begin in January 2020 to recognize and honor the extraordinary record of achievements accomplished by TRB’s volunteers, sponsors, affiliates, friends, and staff. Please support to the celebration by contributing to the Century Club (individuals) or Century Patron (organizations) f...

TRB's Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board has released more than 200 papers from the 2018 TRB Annual Meeting. Enhancements to the journal include:  Articles published much closer to final acceptance A new user interface for the journal Article-level metrics  Full-text HTML to enhance discovery of the research Interactive proof markup for author...

The TRB community extends condolences to the family and friends of Dr. Anthony "Tony" Kane, who passed away on Tuesday, May 15, 2018. Dr. Kane served as an ex officio member of the TRB Executive Committee and was an active volunteer with TRB since 1977. “Tony Kane is someone whose professionalism, friendship, and passion, especially for safety, we all admired and benefited from." states Neil Pe...

Carlos M. Braceras, P.E., has been newly appointed to serve on the TRB Executive Committee. Braceras began his tenure as executive director of the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) in May 2013. In this capacity, he is responsible for UDOT's more than 1,600 employees and the design, construction, and maintenance of Utah's 6,000-mile system of roads and highways. Braceras joined UDOT in 19...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Legal Research Digest 53: Legal Considerations in Relationships Between Transit Agencies and Ridesourcing Service Providers explores the efforts made by public transit agencies to provide on-demand services to the public. It also provides transit agencies with legal guidance for considering whether to enter into relationships with ridesourcing s...

Brian W. Ness, Director of the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD), has been newly appointed to serve on the TRB Executive Committee. Since 2010, Ness has served as the ITD Director. Ness is an active member of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), chairing the AASHTO Special Committee on Transportation Security and Emergency Management (SCOTSEM) unt...

The TRB community extends condolences to the family and friends of Dr. Joseph Sussman, a tireless TRB volunteer who served as Chair of the TRB Executive Committee in 1994. Dr. Sussman passed away on Tuesday, March 20, 2018, at the age of 79 following a long illness. “Perhaps Joe Sussman’s greatest legacy will be the many transportation leaders who he taught and mentored during his long career,”...

TRB is sponsoring the 57th Annual Workshop on Transportation Law on July 15-18, 2018 in Cambridge, MA. The workshop attracts 150 to 200 lawyers, engineers, and transportation planners. The workshop provides a forum for federal, state, and local highway and transit organizations to exchange problems and propose solutions. Workshop participants present unusual cases and identify potential legal p...

TRB has released new Snap Searches exploring rural transportation research and workforce issues. A Snap Search provides a summary of TRB research reports that are underway and published, upcoming events, and ongoing committees that cover these specific topics. Produced by TRB’s Library , Snap Searches are designed for the busy researcher or professional who would like to quickly get up to speed...

Visit the TRB Annual Meeting Online (AMOnline) portal to view the presentations, abstracts, and papers for the more than 5,000 program presentations at the 97th TRB Annual Meeting, January 7-11, 2018. A PDF of the Annual Meeting Final Program is also available through AMOnline. The AMOnline portal includes abstracts, papers, visual aid slides, and poster presentations from the 2014-2018 Annual ...

To keep pace with accelerating rate of research distribution, the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board is now publishing articles as soon as they are finalized. The latest papers to be published are as follows: Use of a Laser Diffractometer to Obtain the Particle Size Distribution of Fine-Grained Soils Interstate Speed Profiles Conditioning and Testing Pr...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Legal Research Digest 52: Legal Implications of Video Surveillance on Transit Systems explores the use of video surveilance systems on buses, trains, and stations. The widespread use of such video surveillance systems has generated numerous legal issues, such as a system’s ability to utilize video to discipline union and non-union employees, saf...

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) has released a request for proposals to produce a report on the emerging legal issues surrounding the use of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) for transit and legal implications related to the transit workforce. Proposals are due April 11, 2018.