During
the 1980s, national support for transit research declined sharply. At the same time, however, new and growing transit systems throughout the
country faced the continuing challenge of providing safe and reliable service at a cost taxpayers would support. With support from the Urban Mass Transit Administration, now known as the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), TRB assembled a committee to review transit research programs and recommend improvements. The committee’s 1987 report called for an operator-sponsored, problem-solving research program focused on priority topics of common interest to transit providers (Special Report 213: Research for Public Transit: New Directions; TRB 1987). The committee urged Congress to allow the agencies to pool their funds to organize and conduct such research. With strong support from the transit industry, Congress subsequently endorsed these recommendations and in 1991 created the Transit Cooperative Research Program.
In 2004 FTA asked TRB to establish a committee to provide a peer review of the FTA R&D program, with an initial focus on the development of its strategic plan for R&D. In its initial letter report, the committee commended FTA’s decision to develop a strategic plan and offered specific comments on the first draft.
Transit Research Analysis Committee (TRAC)