• Federal Highway Administration >
• Publications >
• Research Publications >
• General >
• 03074 >
• Communications Reference Guide

Communications Reference Guide

Chapter 10—Distributing Your Communication Products

Target Your Audience

You may customize your own distribution plan by identifying the audience you want to reach and providing a Microsoft Excel file with addresses in electronic format or submitting preprinted mailing labels.

Regardless of how you choose to disseminate your communication product, Federal law requires that all publications must be available for public distribution through the National Technical Information Service (NTIS). When you process your communication product through HRTM for editorial review and publication, the appropriate numbers of copies are provided to NTIS. When the distribution is "by request only," it will be disseminated solely through NTIS.

Report and TechBrief Mailing Lists

HRTM maintains report and TechBrief mailing lists to reach targeted technical audiences. The mailing lists include entities that requested printed copies of all our products. They are generally libraries, researchers, State DOTs, and academic institutions such as the TRB Library, Texas Transportation Institute, and the National Network of Transportation Research Information Services (TRISNET) Repositories at Northwestern University. HRTM automatically adds these mailing labels to your distribution requirements.

Periodical Mailing Lists

The periodical mailing lists for R&T Transporter, FOCUS, and Public Roads maintained at TFHRC can be used to reach a large, broad technical audience of transportation public groups. The lists include:

• FOCUS: about 11,000 copies to the infrastructure and work zone safety community.

• R&T Transporter: about 3,200 copies to engineers and professionals in the transportation community.

• Public Roads: about 6,000 copies distributed to Federal, State, municipal, and foreign transportation officials, planners, and researchers; transportation industry officials; association leaders; engineering professors and students; transportation reporters and trade media representatives; some members of Congress; and others interested in highway research and technology and/or in FHWA policies and programs.

FHWA Internal Distribution

For internal distribution, FHWA maintains a list of headquarters and field office addresses in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. You may distribute your products to individual offices, teams, or field offices by specifying the number of copies for each on this spreadsheet. Target those offices that would benefit from your R&T product and identify copies needed. Obtain the spreadsheet from the HRTM team.

FHWA External Mail Lists

There are about a dozen official FHWA mailing lists that can be added to your distribution plans to reach yet another audience of highway transportation associations. The FHWA publishing office (HAIM-20) maintains and updates these official lists. As a standard practice, HRTM automatically adds list FHWA-16 (see list information below) to your distribution plans for the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) Centers. The mailing lists follow; let HRTM know your preference for each communication product.

Customized Mailing List

If you would like to submit your own mailing list for distribution, please provide mailing labels or a Microsoft Excel file containing the names and addresses of recipients. Please include the following field names for the headers in the Excel document:

Electronic Database Submissions

As information managers for TFHRC R&T documents, HRTM will submit your products in print or electronic form for distribution through the appropriate transportation databases.

Limited Distribution

Sometimes it is necessary to have only a published record of a research document with a very limited distribution. In this case, HRTM has an NTIS-only distribution that consists of as few copies as possible to only those mandatory entities, including NTIS, R&T Product Distribution Center, the National Transportation Library, and Sweden.

Records Archives

Under the disposition authority granted by NC1-406-80-9, RD&T is responsible for transferring its technical report files, which have been determined by the National Archives and Records Administration to be permanent records, to the Federal Records Center 3 years after the cutoff date. Complying with this authority, HRTM is working with the TFHRC Technical Reference Center and the FHWA Records Officer to transfer a copy of all FHWA RD&T technical reports produced by TFHRC to the National Archives according to the disposition schedule detailed in FHWA Order M 1324.1, dated June 29, 1990.