Leadership: Contributing to Improving the Management and Operation of TRB Committees Blue Ribbon Award

The Blue Ribbon Award recognizes exemplary best practices of TRB standing technical committee activities and volunteer efforts associated with contributing to improving the management and operation of TRB committees.

Nominate Process

Nominations from free standing Sections or Group are due to the Technical Activities Council in September. The nomination process is left to the discussion of the Section or Group Chair and each Section and Group may make no more than one nomination per award category. The description of the committee’s best practice activities shall be no longer than 500 words and must relate specifically to the category for which the committee is being nominated. Activities do not have to be limited to the current year but should include recent activities up to and including the current year. Nominations of committees that won previous Blue Ribbon Committee Awards are acceptable providing that the nomination is based primarily on activities/programs other than those for which the committee won an earlier award.

Selection Process

The Technical Activities Council sponsors four blue ribbon awards that recognize exemplary best practices of standing technical committee activities and the volunteer efforts associated with those activities. The Blue Ribbon Award recipient committees serve as role models, with committee Chairs and members sharing their experiences with others. A subcommittee of the TAC will review the nominations based on the selection criteria and recommend selection of Blue Ribbon Award Committees in each of the four categories. The subcommittee may also recommend an honorable mention in each category. The recommendations will be considered by the full TAC during its fall conference call where final selections will be made.

• 2025 - No award presented
• 2024 - Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Applications Committee (AED50) for holistically improving the committee’s management and operation to effectively advance Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced computing technologies adoption, and stimulate the development of AI workforce in transportation
• 2024 - Research Innovation Implementation Management Committee (AJE35) for its successful merger of two committees through a robust, sustained, and successful effort over the last two years
• 2023 - Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Committee for completing a major strategic planning effort from 2018 to 2019, organizing a 2021 strategic planning workshop, and, engaging with other TRB committees to advance research
• 2022 - Equity in Transportation Committee for planning and hosting of the Inaugural TRB Conference on Advancing Transportation Equity (CATE)
• 2020 - Transportation Education and Training Committee
• 2019 - Public Transportation Planning and Development Committee for streamlining the paper review process for efficiency and committee member engagement
• 2019 - Highway Traffic Monitoring Committee (Honorable Mention) for advancing highway traffic monitoring through strategic research (e-Circular E-C227)
• 2019 - Urban Freight Transportation Committee (Honorable Mention) for engaging a passionate global membership and disseminating urban freight innovation to stakeholders
• 2018 - Intermodal Freight Transport Committee for working with the freight industry to listen, observe, absorb, and then base research on real-world, day-to-day challenge
• 2018 - Cooperation Committee (Honorable Mention) for mainstreaming an international perspective in transportation research and promoting international cooperation in transportation
• 2017 - Vehicle–Highway Automation Committee and the Intelligent Transportation Systems Committee for leading the international community for road vehicle automation through the automated vehicle symposia
• 2017 - Performance Management Committee (Honorable Mention) for applying a new performance management framework to enhance TRB’s strategies and the success of the organization