There has long been a focus on addressing the need for transportation agencies to incorporate more scientific approaches to developing construction and material specifications. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C274: Quality Assurance: Past, Present, and Future provides the synopsis of a workshop held during the TRB Annual Meeting in January 2020 that continued devloping this practice.

There are hundreds if not thousands of variables to consider in foundation design, which require coordination between civil, structural, and geotechnical engineers as well as state departments of transportation (DOTs), environmental planners and other stakeholders, and require knowledge of the many design codes and constantly emerging research and design guidance. The TRB Technical Activity Division's Transportation Research Circular E-C273: TRB Centennial Circular: History and Future Perspectives on Fou...

The aviation industry and federal government are investing significant resources to better understand and minimize the potential environmental impacts related to aviation. In some cases, environmental concerns have become a fundamental constraint to increases in aviation system capacity. Constrained capacity can further exacerbate environmental problems related to noise, local air quality, and other impacts. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C271: Critical Issues in Aviation and the Environment 20...

Nearly all state departments of transportation (DOTs) have some level of oversight over local bridges, and different funding mechanisms and approaches are in use in the states. These are among the key takeaways from a best-practices panel sessions in conjunction with the 12th TRB International Conference on Low-Volume Roads. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C272: Technology Exchange on Local Roads Bridge Programs summarizes these panel sessions.

There is a widespread and heightened interest in both taking a hard look at where inequity exists and how to identify ways to address it with actionable solutions. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's Transportation Research Circular E-C270: Opportunities for Research on Transportation and Equity presents the outcomes of a TRB brainstorming session put forth as a challenge from the TRB Executive Committee to prioritize research on transportation equity issues.

The Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) provides key data for many state and federal freight planning activities. The CFS is a shipper survey used to gather freight flow information including commodity shipped, origin and destination, value and weight, and mode. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C269: 2020 Commodity Flow Survey Workshop summarizes a workshop that provided a platform for discussion of critical needs and uses to improve future iterations of the CFS. Participants met over a half‐day virtual ...

In comparison to the levels of public interest and attention, there is little research to help understand the major obstacles and constraints encountered by women travelers and women working in transportation industries. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C268: Insights, Inclusion, and Impact: Framing the Future for Women in Transportation details the 2019 Women’s Issues in Transportation Conference (WIiT), the sixth in a series that began in 1978, focused on women’s issues related to all aspects o...

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has proven a formidable adversary worldwide, with tremendous impact on the United States. The transportation system is an essential element of our response to this pandemic but has also been significantly impacted across all modes, both passenger and goods movement. This environment is where research is needed most. TRB's Transportation Research Circular E-C267: Summary of Transportation Research Needs Related to COVID-19 details meetings with high-level participants who developed ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted transportation agencies across the U.S. in a variety of ways. On July 15, 2020, TRB's Transportation Asset Management Committee hosted a webinar that featured executives and CEOs from state, regional, and transit agencies. Transportation Research Circular E-C266: Transportation Asset Management in a COVID-19 World captures the details of the discussion on how the pandemic has impacted their agencies and their planned investments in the transportation systems they manage...

TRB hosted the Transportation Resilience 2019: 2nd International Conference on Transportation Resilience to Natural Hazards and Extreme Weather Events (TR2019) at the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, D.C., November 13–15, 2019. The primary purpose of TR2019 program was to present advancements made in transportation systems resilience to natural hazards, climate change, and impacts from extreme weather events. Transportation Research Circular E-C265: Transportation Resilience 2019: 2nd...