In Brief

Starting and sustaining a state quality partnership (SQP) is the focus of a new booklet available from the National Partnership for Highway Quality (NPHQ), entitled How to Grow an SQP. The booklet looks at the benefits that an SQP comprised of transportation stakeholders can provide, including improved partnering on projects, cost savings, improved efficiency, and increased customer satisfaction. The booklet provides detailed guidelines on how to start an SQP or rejuvenate an existing one, outlines NPHQ's new accreditation process for SQPs, and offers appendices with reference material, such as a sample SQP charter. The booklet also includes descriptions of State transportation agency projects that have won NPHQ awards in such categories as design, environmental benefit, innovative contracting, project management, quality materials and methods, and work zone safety.

NPHQ brings together State, Federal, and highway industry leaders to encourage the use of quality practices that will improve safety and service for highway users. How to Grow an SQP is available on the NPHQ Web site at www.NPHQ.org. For more information on starting or rejuvenating an SQP, contact NPHQ at 512-301-9899 (fax: 512-301-9897; email: btemplenphq@aol.com).

A new email newsletter from the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program will provide subscribers with the latest information on the activities of the LTPP program. The newsletter will feature brief updates on such program activities as data collection, data releases, new products and publications, pooled-fund studies, and data analysis. It will also provide links to useful related information on the LTPP Web site and to LTPP team members, for those who would like more indepth information on a topic.

To subscribe to this free newsletter, send an email request to ltppinfo@fhwa.dot.gov. For more information on the LTPP program, contact Aramis Lopez at FHWA, 202-493-3145 (email: aramis.lopez@fhwa.dot.gov).

The Webcast of FHWA's "Introduction to the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide" workshop, which was held in Mystic, Connecticut, in August 2004 and broadcast live over the Internet, is now available online at www.ct.gov/dot (click on "Video on Demand" and then select "FHWA's Introduction to the NCHRP 1-37A Pavement Design Workshop"). Visitors to the site can click on any of the workshop agenda items and then watch that session. Workshop sessions introduced the guide and then covered such topics as what's new and different in the guide, hot-mix asphalt and portland cement concrete aspects of the guide, design guide implementation, and State implementation activities. For more information on the new guide, contact one of the members of FHWA's Design Guide Implementation Team:

Katherine Petros, 202-493-3154

Leslie Myers, 202-366-1198

Chris Wagner, 404-562-3693

Gary Crawford, 202-366-1286

Information is also available via email at DGIT@fhwa.dot.gov.

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