Air Quality Contacts
For more information, please contact Victoria Martinez.
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Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for States, cities, and other agencies to compete for $60 million in Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment Program (ATCMTD) grants to fund new technologies that improve transportation efficiency.
In this fourth round of ATCMTD grants, FHWA is interested in projects that bring data together from different systems, such as integrated corridor management, real-time traveler information, traffic data collection and dissemination, and other multi-modal intelligent transportation system technologies. The program has so far provided $163 million to 28 projects in 19 States.
State departments of transportation (DOTs), local governments, transit agencies, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and other eligible entities are invited to apply under the program. The full NOFO is available here, and more information on the program is available here.
The Traffic Flow Improvement and Advanced Diesel Technologies Tools were updated. FHWA is working to extend the Project Evaluation Years to 2030, as some of the earliest tools Project Evaluation Years are currently end at 2020. We expect this update of the Project Evaluation Year to be completed for the remaining tools by the end of the calendar year. The toolkit is accessible here.
The US Department of Energy published a recent report highlighting how a coordinated group of nearly coalitions work in communities across the country to help local decision makers and fleets understand and implement alternative and renewable fuels, idle-reduction measures, fuel economy improvements, new mobility choices, and emerging transportation technologies. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy facilitates national coordination of the coalitions through its Technology Integration Program.
At the national level, VTO's Technology Integration Program offers technical assistance, information resources, online training, and an array of data and analysis tools. At the local level, coalitions leverage these resources to create networks of community stakeholders and provide hands-on technical assistance to fleets. After a quarter century, coalitions have garnered the respect and trust of fleets and industry alike by providing objective data and real-world lessons learned to smooth the transition to alternative fuels and advanced vehicle technologies. More information about the program is available via the Department of Energy here.
TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 909: Guide to Truck Activity Data for Emissions Modeling explores methods, procedures, and data sets needed to capture commercial vehicle activity, vehicle characteristics, and operations to assist in estimating and forecasting emissions from goods and services movement.
Recent growth in freight traffic is contributing to urban congestion, resulting in hours of delay, increased shipping costs, wasted fuel, and greater emissions of pollutants. The limited national data on urban goods movement are insufficient for a thorough understanding of the characteristics of the trucks operating in metropolitan areas and the complex logistical chains that they serve. NCHRP Research Report 909 enumerates various sources of truck data and how they can be obtained and used to support emissions modeling.
In addition, the report includes a number of additional resources, including NCHRP Web-Only Document 210: Input Guidelines for Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator Model (guidance on developing local inputs to the MOVES mode); NCHRP Web-Only Document 261, which contains seven case studies that serve as the basis for much of the research report; and three MS Excel files that contain data from the case studies.
The FHWA Resource Center and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regions 4 and 6 have announced registration for the Southern Transportation and Air Quality Summit (STAQS 2019). This year, STAQS is being sponsored by the Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency (KIPDA) and will be held on August 20-21, at the Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville, KY.
While the STAQS 2019 Summit registration is now open. Please visit the STAQS website for additional information and the latest updates.
The TxDOT Environmental and TRB Environmental Analysis Committee invite you to attend and participate in the TxDOT 2019 Environmental Conference, in Austin, Texas. This year's conference will consist of a half day general session, and two and a half days of breakout sessions designed to assist you in navigating the environmental process for transportation projects. Please visit the registration site for more information.
Please save the dates for the 12th Conference on Air Quality Models, to be held October 2-3, 2019, on the EPA Campus in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. A Federal Register notice will be available with more conference information by August. For more information, see the EPA's Support Center for Regulatory Atmospheric Modeling (SCRAM) website.
FHWA, AASHTO and the Transportation Research Board (TRB) are sponsoring the 2nd International Conference on Transportation System Resilience to Natural Hazards and Extreme Weather from November 13-15, 2019, at the National Academies Building in Washington, DC. The conference is designed to provide transportation agencies with information, research results, and example practices to assist in their ability to anticipate and adapt to the potential impacts of extreme weather events. Registration is now available. See the conference website or contact Heather Holsinger at Heather.Holsinger@dot.gov for more information.
TRB is sponsoring the Conference on Health and Active Transportation on December 11-12, 2019 in Washington, DC. This conference will explore opportunities in quantifying the health effects of transportation policies, infrastructure, and travel behavior. It also intends to raise awareness of opportunities to integrate health and health equity into transportation planning across all levels (including planning for active transportation). Contact Bernardo Kleiner at BKleiner@nas.edu or Gary Jenkins at GJenkins@nas.edu for more information.
The National Transit Institute (NTI) is offering in-person training opportunities covering its "Introduction to Transportation Conformity" course. This 2.5 day course will present basic information about conformity requirements and the relationship of the transportation and air quality planning processes in order to prepare agency staff (federal, state and local) to participate in interagency consultation and work effectively in resolving conformity issues. For more information, please visit the NTI registration website.
FHWA's Resource Center Air Quality Technical Services Team is available to offer MOVES and other trainings. More information about Resource Center training opportunities is available at the Resource Center website.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a three-day training course on completing quantitative PM hot-spot analyses according to EPA's "Transportation Conformity Guidance for Quantitative Hot-spot Analyses in PM2.5 and PM10 Nonattainment and Maintenance Areas" (PM Hot-spot Guidance). This course is geared towards state and local agency staff who will be completing these analyses, as well as those who may be reviewing, approving, or otherwise assessing hot-spot analyses. Previous modeling experience is not necessary, although familiarity with MOVES and air quality dispersion modeling may be helpful. There is no registration fee for this course. Details are available on the EPA website.
As a reminder, several web-based transportation conformity training opportunities are available on-demand from FHWA's conformity training website (under "Web-based Training"). These training opportunities range in level of detail from a short 27-minute video providing a high-level basic overview of transportation conformity to a detailed set of 32 self-directed training modules. Recordings of two webinars were added recently: basic transportation conformity overview (June 12, 2018, 70 minutes) and basic MOVES emissions model training (June 18, 2018, 42 minutes).Â
The target audience for these training materials are FHWA staff and State and local transportation partners (MPOs and State DOTs) who are either new to or would like a refresher training on the conformity process. For questions, please contact David Kall, at david.kall@dot.gov, or 202-366-6276.
The FHWA posted a 27-minute YouTube video on the CMAQ program. The video provides a basic introduction to the program, how CMAQ funds are distributed to states, and the types of projects eligible for the CMAQ program. The training is available via the FHWA's YouTube channel. For more information about the CMAQ program, please contact Mark Glaze at mark.glaze@dot.gov or (202) 366-4053.
The FHWA Resource Center Planning and Air Quality team will be conducting a series of training sessions on NEPA Air Quality Analysis for Highway Projects. The training includes sessions on project-level applications appropriate for managers and practitioners, as well as hands-on sessions intended for modelers. Please note this is not a general MOVES training course, but is focused on project-level applications. It is not intended to address regional applications, such as SIP emissions inventories or regional (plan and TIP) conformity analyses. If you are interested in this training, please contact Michael Claggett at michael.claggett@dot.gov.
Two MySQL training opportunities are available for MOVES model users. A three-hour webinar provides an introduction to MySQL Query Browser and MOVES interface. A six-hour training over two days will enable users to do MySQL programming and to write their own MySQL scripts and to manipulate MySQL databases including MOVES input and outputs. For more information or to schedule training, please contact Michael Claggett at michael.claggett@dot.gov.
The National Highway Institute (NHI) Air Quality Planning web-based training series is designed for transportation practitioners. It includes four modules: Clean Air Act Overview (FHWA-NHI-142068), State Implementation Plan (SIP) and Transportation Control Measure (TCM) Requirements and Policies (FHWA-NHI-142069), SIP Development Process (FHWA-NHI-142070), and Transportation Conformity (FHWA-NHI-142071). All courses are free. For more information, visit the NHI website and search "Air Quality Planning," or look for the specific course number. Please contact Karen Perritt at (202) 366-9066, or Karen.Perritt@dot.gov with any questions or comments.
Past issues of the Air Quality and Sustainability Highlights are available on FHWA's website: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/air_quality/conformity/highlights/ or https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/sustainability/newsletter/.
Please e-mail Victoria.Martinez@dot.gov with any suggestions for future issues.
