Congress authorized a $70 million program of advanced, long-term research and called for greater stakeholder involvement in competitively solicited, merit-reviewed proposals in FHWA’s research programs;

The Strategic Highway Research Program II was authorized at $50 million annually for 2006-2009;

The Surface Transportation Environment and Planning Cooperative Research Program was authorized at $17 million annually;

Authorization for the Transit Cooperative Research Program was continued and funding increased 22 percent;

The Long-Term Pavement Performance Program was continued; and

A recommended pilot program of research in hazardous material transportation was authorized at $5 million.

 
Congress adopted the recommendations to create an Airport Cooperative Research Program in the 2003 reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. Funding was appropriated beginning in the following year.

The Federal Railroad Administration should focus its R&D program on projects that promise the largest safety benefits, work with industry to improve the quality of safety data, fund research into the development of performance-based safety regulations, and wrap up the promising development and testing of positive train control technologies.

Congress created the recommended Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) in 1991.

Congress created the recommended Transit Cooperative Research Program in the surface transportation reauthorization legislation of 1991.

Congress funded the recommended $150 million, 5-year Strategic Highway Research Program in surface transportation legislation of 1987.

Studies for BTS recommended that it (a) shift its emphasis from reliance on a small number of periodically collected general-purpose surveys to a family of surveys that could be addressed more specifically to user needs and collected on an ongoing basis and (b) develop a long-term strategic plan to collect comprehensive statistics on freight flows.