Transportation Research Board
HomeContact Us Directory E-NewsletterFollow Us RSS

The National Academies
Text Size: Increase Text SizeDecrease Text Size| Share:


Pavement Research at TRB

The mission of the Transportation Research Board is to provide leadership in transportation innovation and progress through research and information exchange, conducted within a setting that is objective, interdisciplinary, and multimodal. This page highlights recently released TRB reports, meeting announcements, requests for proposals, and other announcements related to pavements. In addition, it includes links to selected pavement research-related activities taking place at the federal and state levels, and within the academic and international transportation communities. Finally, this page also highlights and provides links to TRB programs and activities, which are the source of most of TRB’s pavement-related research products.

What's New

TRB Pavement-Related Programs and Activities

Quality Control/Quality Assurance Testing for Joint Density and Segregation of Asphalt Mixtures
May 22, 2013
The Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University has released a report that evaluates the level of compaction at the longitudinal joint to determine the effects of segregation on joint performance.
2011 Overview:  Traffic Safety Fact Sheet2011 Overview: Traffic Safety Fact Sheet
May 22, 2013
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released a fact sheet provides an overview of data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and General Estimates System for a variety of areas including restraint use, children pedestrians, and bicyclists.
Development of a Wheel-Tracking Test for Rut Resistance Characterization of Unbound Granular Materials
May 20, 2013
Austroads has released a report that highlights a new wheel-tracker and compactor test that was developed and manufactured for unbound granular material characterization.
TRB Webinar: Life-Cycle Cost Analysis
May 20, 2013
TRB will conduct a webinar on May 23, 2013 from 2:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. ET that will explore the basics of an economic analysis tool called the Life-Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) and how it can be used in the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) legislation. Participants must register in advance of the webinar, and there is a fee for non-TRB Sponsor employees. A certificate for 2 Pr...
2014 TRB 93rd Annual Meeting and Transportation Research Record Call for Papers2014 TRB 93rd Annual Meeting and Transportation Research Record Call for Papers
May 15, 2013
TRB standing committees have issued  calls for papers for the TRB 93rd Annual Meeting, January 12-16, 2014, in Washington, D.C, and the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRR). While papers addressing any relevant aspect of transportation research will be considered, some committees are soliciting papers in specific subject areas to help potential...
50th Anniversary for the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 50th Anniversary for the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
May 15, 2013
The 2013 series marks the 50th year of TRB’s peer-reviewed journal, which debuted as the Highway Research Record in 1963; became the Transportation Research Record in 1974, with Number 480; and added the subtitle, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, in 2000, with Number 1653. In all, TRB has published more than 25,000 papers in volumes of the TRR Journal and continues to build on its ...
External Noise from Milled Centerline Rumble Strips
May 13, 2013
VTI, the Swedish National Road and Transport Institute, has released a report that describes a series of measurements and calculations for determining expected rumble strip hits and sound levels.
Structural Performance of Texas U-Beams at Prestress Transfer and Under Shear Critical Loads
May 13, 2013
The Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas-Austin has released a report that evaluates Texas U-Beams including measurements of their concrete curing temperatures in square and skewed end blocks and establishment of the vertical shear capacity of their standard section loads.
Development of a Simple Test to Determine the Low Temperature Strength of Asphalt Mixtures and BindersDevelopment of a Simple Test to Determine the Low Temperature Strength of Asphalt Mixtures and Binders
May 11, 2013
TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Final Report for NCHRP-IDEA Project 151: Development of a Simple Test to Determine the Low Temperature Strength of Asphalt Mixtures and Binders explores low temperature strength tests on asphalt mixture and asphalt binder beam specimens with the bending beam rheometer.
TRB Webinar: Performance Specifications for Rapid Renewal (R07)TRB Webinar: Performance Specifications for Rapid Renewal (R07)
May 10, 2013
As part of the SHRP2 Tuesdays Webinar Series, TRB will conduct a webinar on June 11, 2013 from 2:00 p.m.- 3:30 p.m. ET that will explore the project Performance Specifications for Rapid Renewal, which addresses the obstacles of defining fair and meaningful specification requirements when implementing rapid renewal performance specifications . Participants must register in advance of the webinar...

Synthesis of Information Related to Highway Problems
TRB's Synthesis of Information Related to Highway Problems searches out and synthesizes useful knowledge from all available sources and prepares concise, documented reports on specific topics. Reports from this endeavor constitute an National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) report series, Synthesis of Highway Practice.
Highway Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program
TRB's Highway Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) Program is designed to provide an opportunity to investigate new and unproven concepts or to evaluate novel applications of technologies that have been tried, tested or used for highway systems practice.
Cooperative Research Programs
TRB's Cooperative Research Programs Division manages several cooperative research programs that frequently produces reports that have relevence to issues outside of the program's core focus areas.
Technical Activities Standing Committees
TRB's Technical Activities Division provides a forum for transportation professionals in all modes and functions to identify research needs and to share information on research and issues of interest. The Division's staff of specialists in each mode and discipline work with a network of volunteers to carry out activities on behalf of TRB sponsors and the transportation community, including the TRB Annual Meeting, conferences and workshops, publications, visits to each state, and responses to inquiries. This network includes members and friends of over 200 standing committees, supplemented by designated TRB representatives in each state, over 150 universities, and 35 transit agencies.
Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2)
Congress established the SHRP 2 in 2006 to investigate the underlying causes of highway crashes and congestion in a short-term program of focused research. To carry out that investigation, SHRP 2 targets goals in four interrelated focus areas--Safety, Renewal, Reliability, and Capacity.
Research in Progress in this Subject Area
TRB's Research in Progress (RiP) Database now contains more than 11,900 current or recently completed transportation research projects. Most of the RiP records are projects funded by federal and state departments of transportation. University transportation research is also included. The RiP Database also serves as a clearinghouse of University Transportation Centers ongoing research.
Research Needs in this Subject Area
An important function of TRB is to stimulate research that addresses concerns, issues, or problems facing the transportation community. In support of this function, TRB Technical Activities standing committees identify, develop, and disseminate research need statements (RNS) for use by practitioners, researchers, and others.
Research Completed in this Subject Area
TRB's TRID is integrated database that combines the records from TRB's Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) Database and the OECD's Joint Transport Research Centre’s International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) Database. TRID provides access to over 900,000 records of transportation research worldwide.