17 April 2006 - UTCs and DOTs: How To Work Together
I had the opportunity to attend a two day meeting last
week in Washington, DC on how University Transportation
Centers can work more closely with the U.S. Department of
Transportation. The DOT is inviting more collaboration
with UTCs on the research programs of its various modal
administrations.
One of the major reasons for this push is the high level
of earmarking included in the 2005 transportation
reauthorization legislation. This legislation increased the number
of UTCs from 27 to 60, while funding increased from just
over $30 million annually to over $70 million.
Including non-UTC earmarks, over $110 million annually has
been set aside for university research through the life of
the new authorization. Why is this important? The
level of earmarking is so high that the Title V research
funding remaining for FHWA's own research program and the
support of the Transportation Research Board is zero. This means that in order for FHWA and other DOT agencies to
accomplish their research objectives, they will have to turn
to universities for help. It is in our interest to
continue to learn about DOT research priorities, and where
appropriate, incorporate their needs into our own research
work. Here are some notes from the various presentations
from DOT staff. Thomas E. Marchessault (Acting
Director, Office of Innovation, Research & Education, Office
of Research, Development and Technology, Research &
Innovative Technology Administration) served as host for the
meeting. He represents RITA, the administration
responsible for the UTC program. He noted that there
have been over 1500 UTC graduates since 1998. He also
noted the importance of leveraging our work, and matching it
with the federal needs that we would hear about over the two
day meeting. He noted that the UTC program now consists of 10 regional centers
(subject to a competition), 10 tier 1 centers (of which
NIATT is a part. and subject to competition), 11 national or
super centers, 22 tier 2 centers, and six other centers. Of the 60 centers now in the program, two-thirds receive
direct grant funding with no required competition. [I
will note that even though the regional centers are required
to compete periodically, only three times in the nearly 20
year history of the program has a center in any region
actually changed hands!] Here is a link to RITA's web
site: www.rita.dot.gov
George Shaner (Office of the Secretary, Policy
Office) described the priorities for the work that his
office is doing. He noted that there is more focus on
economic analysis and the role of private investment. They are very interested in how to deal with congestion in
various venues including urban, freight, and rural. Other topics of interest include: energy efficiency, safety,
and environmental stewardship. They are concerned with
transportation system performance and what we get in return
for the investments that we make. Here are their top
ten research needs:
- What are the overall costs and benefits of
transportation investment at the program level?
- What are the costs and benefits at individual
project level. (And with over 6000 earmarks in the
2005 reauthorization, how do we subject these projects
to economic review?)
- Congestion including congestion pricing. What
are the costs of congestion? [How can we measure
fuel and energy costs that are a part of the work that
we do at NIATT? What benefits does our research
bring?]
- How to use ITS for more efficient system operation?
- What is the right mix of public and private
financing for a project?
- How can we make rural accessibility programs more
efficient?
- How can we accommodate the growing demand for global
freight movement?
- How can we impose measures of effectiveness for
freight operations (productivity comparisons are
important)?
- What are the long term trends that affect highway
and transport safety
- How to promote more environmentally sustainable
transport systems.
Here is a link to the Office of the Secretary:
http://www.dot.gov/ost/index.html
Denny Judyicki (FHWA, Director, Office of
Research, Development, and Technology) encouraged UTCs
to take advantage of the identified gaps in both safety
and operations research. He described the need for
new ways of doing context sensitive design. He
emphasized their major problem: they have no research
dollars and desperately need research partnerships.
He described the upcoming June 6/7 meeting at Turner-Fairbank
to discuss urban and suburban mobility and congestion
mitigation research needs as one of their first outreach
efforts to UTCs. They are promoting ITS intersection
technologies, and are considering how much technology
should be on the vehicle and how much at the
intersection.
Here are several links related to Judyicki's office:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/orgrdat.htm
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/crt/index.cfm
http://www.tfhrc.gov/
Ron Hynes (Federal Transit Administration,
Research, Demonstration, and Innovation). Railroad
grade crossing research is important. [How can our
PnP technology for peds and grade crossing be brought to
bear here?]. They have demonstration projects on
fuel technologies. See FTA's strategic research
plan (on FTA's research and technical assistance page:
http://www.fta.dot.gov/26_ENG_HTML.htm). They
will post UTC strategic research topics on their web
site.
Joseph Kanianthra (NHTSA, Associate
Administrator for Vehicle Safety
Research). Theirs is a safety data driven agenda. Our possible role: data collection and management. Possible role for Karl Rink in heavy truck occupant
restraint systems?
Michael Griffith (Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, Director, Office of Research and
Analysis). Crash restraints for large vehicles. Wal-Mart imports ten percent of all of the goods that the
US imports from China. About 75 percent of fatal
truck collisions involve passenger cars and large trucks
(with passenger cars the cause in most cases).
Link to research and technology web site:
http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/facts-research/facts-research.htm.
Mark Yachmetz (Federal Railroad
Administration, Associate Administrator for Railroad
Development). Mission is safety, efficiency, and
capacity. Possible areas for work include grade
crossings, signal control and train detection. Link to research and technology web site:
http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/32.
Joan Bauerlein (Director of Operations,
Planning, and Research, Federal Aviation Administration). They
are interested in pavement design issues and
technologies, and with recent research, have surpassed
FHWA's pavement research efforts. hey are also
interested in metrics for measuring the results of
research. What are we getting from the research
that we are buying? They've spent $100 million in
weather research (since weather problems account for 70
percent of airline delays), and their is no improvement
in on-time performance. From a delay standpoint,
was this research worth the investment?
John Flaherty
(Chief of Staff, US DOT).
Three issues: history of program, accountability and
benchmarking, and UTC opportunities.
The UTC program has historically focused on technical
and practical research, applications of technology to
transportation. RITA was formed to bring coordination
between the research of the various modal
administrations. RITA's mission now is to get
coordination and collaboration with university partners
and to develop practical applications. [Note: this
statement directly contradicts the new RITA
administrator, who is pushing for more long term basic
research! How to resolve?]
Bottom line: How to get efficiencies and performance
from UTCs, with requirements to delivery on the
objectives that they set out for themselves. Benchmarks should be the key. Practical
technologies will be one of the key measures of
university success. The universities that deliver
useful things to the DOT will be the ones most valued. You need to develop products as good stewards of
taxpayer dollars.
Opportunity: Two issues for taxpayers: quality of
life and economic security. How do we deliver
these? What can we bring to the quality of life
discussions? We don't have statistics to be able
to measure these things for decision-makers. ITS
is moving to RITA for practical applications. We
need to emphasize practical solutions. If you
"give us what we need, we will make you stars." What measurable criteria can we use for success?
Flaherty likened rush hours to brown outs and black
outs for electric utilities. Why do we accept
congestion when we don't accept power blackouts?
Stacey Gerard (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration, Assistant Administrator/Chief Safety
Officer). They have $3.7 million
research and technology budget. They are
interested in leak detection.
Miscellaneous notes from second day. The
UTC theme should be brief and clear. It should be
a general theme with specific focus areas. We need
to look at state DOT needs, not just research, but what
kinds of projects they are undertaking. Look at NCHRP project request list for ideas that we might
undertake that are not funded through the AASHTO-SCOR
process. Rod Diridon noted that who we serve
sometimes determines our theme. Wes Lum noted the
importance of marketing our research, how we effectively
share our information. Clark Martin discussed
FHWA's educational development initiative, which could
have over $1 million annually for the next four years.
Wes Lum encourage PIs to develop research budgets that
included up to 40 percent for implementation activities
and to "put out fires."
Sample UTC questions
Center Theme
What are examples of good themes, and what makes them
good?
What if my theme doesn't work out?
Research Selection Process
Who are considered peers?
Do centers use the same process for all projects or are some
selected differently?
In particular, how are state DOT projects selected?
Do the new recommended activities of advanced research and
congestion change the current UTC selection process?
Updated documents show a much greater emphasis on support of
US DOT priorities; what if I'm already doing so?
What should a state DOT's role be with the UTCs in the
region?
Staffing
How much time does a typical UTC director devote to the
center?
Why is it important for the director to have an assistant
director or administrative manager?
What is an appropriate number of staff?
Grant year
How do I decide when this should be?
Matching funds
Where do UTCs get this?
What are examples of in-kind match?
Major message: The DOT is looking for true
collaboration and we can help both our program and their
needs by working with them on research projects of
mutual interest. |
