U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology
Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations
| REPORT |
| This report is an archived publication and may contain dated technical, contact, and link information |
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| Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-15-049 Date: April 2015 |
Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-15-049 Date: April 2015 |
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The LTPP program relies upon technical, scientific, and management expertise in the private sector to carry out different aspects of its mission. Under the program’s leadership, contractors provide the skilled personnel needed to implement a research program of this magnitude. Contractual relationships with engineering and consulting firms, testing laboratories, and equipment manufacturers have been essential in planning the program’s experiments, managing the collection and quality assurance of the data, building the program’s Information Management System (IMS), conducting analyses, and producing results.
This appendix lists briefly the key contracts that have been instrumental in achieving the program’s objectives and acknowledges many of the firms that have contributed to the LTPP program. The list is not comprehensive, and many equipment, instrumentation, and data analysis contract services used by the program may not be described below due to the difficulty of retrieving historical information. Contracts in place under the leadership of both the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) between 1987 and 1992 and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) from 1992 through the present are listed. More detail on the types of activities carried out by some of the contracts listed below is provided in chapter 2.
During the transition of the LTPP program from SHRP to FHWA, a 15-month contract with the National Research Council, National Academies, continued the services of the Pavement Performance Advisory Committee, its supporting expert task groups, and the LTPP regional engineers. The contract also assigned responsibility for the international coordination activities associated with the Transportation Research Board (TRB) annual meeting to FHWA. Later, the services of the LTPP regional engineers were included in the technical support services contract. After this transitional period, FHWA contracted with TRB to continue advisory services to the LTPP program, and the committee was renamed the LTPP Committee. This contract has been modified and renewed periodically. The National Research Council has been the primary conduit for peer exchanges among the LTPP Team, its senior management, and the program’s stakeholders and partners. Appendix A provides a detailed description of the advisory committees and expert task groups.
Objective
The original objective for this contract during the SHRP management years was to provide the technical and management services needed to develop and conduct the LTPP studies and to build and maintain the LTPP database. These same services and more have been required during the FHWA management years. In particular, from 1992 until 2002, the services of the LTPP regional engineers were included in the contract. In 1997, the development, refinement, and assessment of traffic data collection activities were added. The contract also provided customer support services until 2006, when this function was transferred to the LTPP Team and its onsite General Administration Support contractor. The technical support contract, however, continues to provide support, as needed, for customer-related data requests and information.
SHRP-LTPP Contractor
Texas Research and Development Foundation (prime)/University of Texas Center for Transportation Research/Pavement Consultancy Services, Inc.
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
Pavement Consultancy Services (prime), later acquired by LAW Engineering; LAW later acquired by MACTEC Engineering and Consulting, Inc.; MACTEC later acquired by AMEC Environment & Infrastructure, Inc./Science Applications International Corporation/Soil and Materials Engineers, Inc.
Objective
The objective for these contracts during SHRP management and now under FHWA management is to implement consistent data collection, data processing, and data quality activities to support the LTPP program objectives for test sections across each of the four LTPP geographical boundaries: North Atlantic, North Central, Southern, and Western Regions. The contract services also require close coordination with the highway agencies to carry out these primary activities.
In each region, an LTPP engineer was assigned to oversee the daily operations of the regional staff. These regional engineers were employees of SHRP, and later FHWA continued their services through a mix of contractual and employment arrangements. Ivan Pecnik (North Atlantic Region), Dick Ingberg (North Central Region), Homer Wheeler and Morris Reinhardt (Southern Region), and Calvin Berge (Western Region) all served in this capacity until they retired or the regional engineer staffing was ended in 2002.
SHRP-LTPP Contractors
Pavement Management Systems, Ltd. (prime)/Austin Research Engineers, Inc. (LTPP North Atlantic Region)
Braun Pavement Technology (prime)/Soil and Materials Engineers (LTPP North Central Region)
Brent Rauhut Engineering, Inc. (LTPP Southern Region)
Austin Research Engineers, Inc. (LTPP Western Region)
Nichols Consulting Engineers, Chtd. (LTPP Western Region)
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
Pavement Management Systems, Ltd., later acquired by Stantec (LTPP North Atlantic Region)
Braun Pavement Technology (prime)/Soil and Materials Engineers (LTPP North Central Region)
ERES Consultants (LTPP North Central Region)
Stantec (LTPP North Central Region)
Brent Rauhut Engineering, Inc., later acquired by Fugro Consultants; Fugro now Fugro Roadware (LTPP Southern Region)
Nichols Consulting Engineers, Chtd. (LTPP Western Region)
Objective
To accomplish the program objective, this contract provides onsite engineering and technical support services to the LTPP program manager at FHWA’s Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center. The services under the contract include technical support activities such as teaching the LTPP distress workshops; updating and maintaining the Data Analysis/Operations Feedback Report activities; maintaining the LTPP program documents and files, publications, Reference Library, Strategic Plan for LTPP Data Analysis, Web page, and mailing and email distribution lists; assisting in drafting and reviewing the LTPP newsletter; working at the LTPP exhibit booth at the TRB Annual Meeting and other conferences; and more recently, in 2006, handling all data and information requests from users sent to the LTPP Customer Support Service Center. This type of contract did not exist under SHRP management.
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
EBA Engineering, Inc.
LENDIS Corporation
ECOMPEX
Engineering & Software Consultants, Inc. (ESCINC)
The equipment and instrumentation contracts provide the engineering and technical support services needed to collect the various types of data at the LTPP test sections. The contract services during the SHRP management years focused on developing, testing, and establishing standard protocols for the equipment used to collect the pavement data. In the early years of the LTPP program, some of the data collection equipment simply did not exist, and the contractors selected played a major role in developing the first-generation data collection equipment used by the program. The LTPP program has raised the bar for collecting quality data which has encouraged industry to improve not only how they collect the data, but also how they manufacture the equipment used to collect the data. As a result, many equipment manufacturers and vendors have changed their practices and are continually improving their technology, when necessary. With the passing of time, technology has improved, providing FHWA management more equipment options from which to choose.
The services provided by the many equipment manufacturers and vendors over three decades are too numerous to discuss in this appendix, but those relating to major data collection efforts are briefly described.
Objective
The services provided under this contract were to perform periodic surface distress surveys using continuous 35-mm black-and-white photography for the purpose of obtaining a permanent historical record of the pavement condition over the full length and width of the LTPP test sections, and to interpret the distress data (type, severity, and quantity) from these photographic records. To achieve this, survey vehicles operated at highway speeds and all surveys were done at night under controlled, artificial lighting. The reduction of distress data from the film was done in the office using a software and film-handling system, which consisted of a computer, a film transport device with a digitizing tablet for viewing and digitizing images from the 35-mm films, a printer for preparing reports, and an inkjet plotter for producing color distress maps. The actual film interpretation was comparable to performing a typical manual distress survey; that is, the type, amount, and severity of the distresses existing in the test section were observed and recorded.1
Contractor
PASCO USA was the contractor under both SHRP and FHWA management. The company later sold their North American rights and equipment to Cumberledge, Gramling and Hunt, which was later acquired by Applied Research Associates, Inc.
Objective
The services required under this contract are to provide new falling weight deflectometer (FWD) systems or to refurbish existing systems to perform structural evaluation of the LTPP test sections, calibration, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and repair; provide replacement parts; and provide updated software, training, and technical support to the LTPP regional FWD operators. The contract agreements have provided either complete overhaul of the FWD units used by the LTPP program or complete replacement of the units.
Contractor
Dynatest USA was the contractor under SHRP management and has continued under FHWA management.
Objective
The objective of this contract was to upgrade the existing FWD calibration system hardware and software to take advantage of improvements in technology. These upgrades would make calibration sustainable for the next decade without a loss of quality while ensuring that any new procedures are compatible with all brands of FWDs sold in the United States. The contract also provided a plan for permanent support of the four LTPP calibration centers through the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Materials Reference Laboratory. This contract did not exist under SHRP management.
FHWA-LTPP Contractor
Cornell Local Roads Program, Cornell University
Objective
The services required under this contract are to provide noncontact inertial road profiling equipment capable of measuring and recording the road surface profile in both wheelpaths at normal highway speed, perform scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and repair, and provide training and technical support to the LTPP regional profiler operators. Later, under FHWA management, the latest profiler units were also equipped to collect pavement macrotexture data and ambient and surface temperatures with Global Positioning System coordinates.
SHRP-LTPP Contractor
K. J. Law
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
K. J. Law
International Cybernetics Corporation
Ames Engineering, Inc.
Objective
Traffic data collection contracts awarded by FHWA in the early 2000s address the missing traffic data at the Specific Pavement Study (SPS) -1 (structural factors for flexible pavements), -2 (structural factors for rigid pavements), -5 (rehabilitation of asphalt concrete pavements), and -6 (rehabilitation of jointed Portland cement concrete pavements) projects. Funding limitations restricted the LTPP program from collecting quality, monitored traffic data at the SPS-8 (environmental factors in the absence of heavy loads) projects which were included in the original data collection plan (see chapter 7).
The contractual services provide a central mechanism to ensure that the traffic data collection equipment is routinely calibrated, validated, and, when necessary, replaced and that the data collected by the equipment installed at the SPS sites are uniformly checked on a regular basis. These contracts are conducted under two concurrent phases with a separate contractor for each phase. The Phase I contractor performs the field calibration and validation activities for the traffic data collection equipment, and the Phase II contractor installs and maintains the equipment. The contracts were initiated under the LTPP SPS Traffic Data Collection Pooled-Fund Study, which was an outcome of the LTPP Program Improvement Campaign (see chapter 11), and thus did not exist under SHRP management.
The services provided under these contracts are to verify that the weigh-in-motion (WIM) systems at the SPS sites are operating at peak performance and to document the reliability of the data being collected. If the WIM systems are not meeting the LTPP accuracy requirements, the contractor must identify the problems and recommend corrective actions, as well as supporting rationales for these actions.
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
MACTEC Engineering and Consulting, Inc.
Applied Research Associates, Inc.
The services provided under these contracts are to install and calibrate WIM systems that would provide research-quality traffic data (defined to be at least 210 days a year of data of known calibration, meeting LTPP’s accuracy requirements) for 5 or more years at SPS sites that either did not have an operational WIM system, or that had been recommended by the contractor performing the WIM field calibration and validation activities to replace the equipment. The services also include maintenance of the WIM systems installed and replacement of the systems, if necessary. In addition, daily verification checks are also part of the contract services.
FHWA-LTPP Contractor
International Road Dynamics, Inc.
Objective
Materials contracts awarded by SHRP and FHWA cover the collection of materials samples at the LTPP test sections and laboratory testing of the collected samples. The contract services are performed either regionally or centrally and the laboratory testing results are entered into the LTPP database.
The services provided under these contracts were to perform drilling and materials sampling at the LTPP test sections and to label with source information, package, and ship the collected samples to the appropriate laboratory testing facility. During SHRP management, these services were performed by firms within each region rather than through one central contract.
SHRP-LTPP Contractors
Westinghouse Environmental and Geotechnical Services
Professional Service Industries, Inc. (LTPP North Atlantic Region)
Braun Engineering Testing (LTPP North Central Region)
LAW Engineering (prime)/Southwest Labs (LTPP Southern Region)
Chen-Northern (LTPP Western Region)
FHWA-LTPP Contractor
Braun Intertec
The services provided under these contracts are to store loose and core forms of highway materials (asphalt concrete, Portland cement concrete, natural aggregates) from the LTPP test sections and provide a climate-controlled room to house 35-mm films that contain images of the LTPP test sections. Other pavement research programs have also stored their materials at the Materials Reference Library (MRL). The SHRP Asphalt program contract established the MRL at a facility in Austin, Texas. This contract ended in 1993, and the materials were relocated to a facility in Reno, Nevada, under FHWA management.
SHRP-LTPP Contractor
University of Texas at Austin
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
Nichols Consulting Engineers, Chtd.
Sierra Transportation Engineers, Inc.
Objective
The original objectives for these contracts during the SHRP management years were to provide the technical and management services needed to build and maintain the IMS and to ensure continuity, stability, and access to the LTPP data. Under FHWA management years, the contract services have been expanded to include new data elements collected from the LTPP test sections and the creation of a Web-based data entry portal that allows for real-time loading of data from the LTPP regional support contractor offices directly to the national LTPP database. In more recent years of the LTPP program, a contract independent of the IMS contracts was put in place to improve user access to the LTPP data and other program information.
The services provided under these contracts have been to organize and implement the LTPP IMS, its national node in Washington, DC, and the four LTPP regional nodes. The specific services include installation of the National IMS (NIMS) at the TRB, National Research Council, facilities in Washington, DC, and the necessary interfaces between the program and contractor offices to allow flexible access to the data for a national analysis program; installation of the regional IMS (RIMS) nodes at the four regional contractor offices, and the necessary interface and quality control subsystems among the regional, LTPP program, and IMS contractor offices; and documentation and training to allow operation of the RIMS and NIMS by the program and contractor staff. Under FHWA, these services have been provided from locations in Oak Ridge, TN; Beltsville, MD; and McLean, VA.
SHRP-LTPP Contractor
Science Applications International Corporation
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
Pavement Consultancy Services, later acquired by LAW Engineering (prime); LAW later acquired by MACTEC Engineering and Consulting, Inc.; MACTEC later acquired by AMEC Environment & Infrastructure, Inc./Science Applications International Corporation/Soil and Materials Engineers, Inc.
The services provided under this contract were to develop a Web-based system to provide continuous user access to LTPP data, documents, and related program information. This type of contract did not exist under SHRP management. The contract covered the development of DataPave Online and its expanded system, Products Online, which included other LTPP products (see chapter 10).
FHWA-LTPP Contractor
iENGINEERING Corporation
The services provided under this contract have been to develop, enhance, maintain, and support an effective Web interface program for the LTPP IMS. This Web-based system, known as LTPP InfoPaveâ„¢, provides on-demand access to the LTPP database, Ancillary Information Management System, and products and tools to help maximize understanding and use of the data and other program information. This type of contract did not exist under SHRP management.
FHWA-LTPP Contractor
iENGINEERING Corporation
Objective
The LTPP program has contracted with many consultants, researchers, private firms, and universities—too many to list in this appendix—to examine the LTPP data over its nearly three decades. Details on the contractors that have conducted LTPP data analysis can be found by viewing the Strategic Plan for LTPP Data Analysis at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/research/tfhrc/programs/infrastructure/pavements/ltpp/analysisplan/index7print.cfm.
The objective for the key data analysis contract during SHRP management was to perform the initial analysis studies for the first five LTPP program objectives. The activities for this first data analysis contract included the evaluation of existing design methods, improved design equations, effects of load and environment on pavement distress and performance, effects of specific design features on pavement performance, and evaluation of the design equations in the AASHTO Pavement Design Guide2 in light of empirical–mechanistic analysis techniques. In the principal data analysis contract, LTPP data were extracted and processed to create analytical databases tailored to the planned calculations. During this process, data gaps, overlaps, and other inconsistencies were identified for correction in the LTPP database portion of the IMS. Also, preliminary distress-specific pavement performance models were developed and sensitivity analyses were conducted to identify those variables having the strongest influence on specific distresses. In the secondary, smaller data analysis contract, efforts focused on the mechanistic evaluation of the AASHTO flexible pavement design equation and led to the identification of procedures in the AASHTO Pavement Design Guide that were inconsistent with a mechanistic model for pavement structures.
FHWA has used the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract mechanism twice to award research projects involving innovative analysis approaches, novel ideas, and new methods of using LTPP data and information that will result in a better understanding of pavement performance. The primary objective of the BAAs was to derive useable and useful interim advances, with immediate applications in the areas of pavement design, construction, and evaluation practice, through analysis of the LTPP data.
The BAA projects provide the basis for identifying and developing products that engineers and managers can apply to design more cost-effective and better performing pavements. Four projects were performed under the first BAA between 1994 and 1996, and 12 projects will be performed under the second BAA between 2014 and 2016.
SHRP-LTPP Contractor
Brent Rauhut Engineering, Inc. (prime)/ERES Consultants
FHWA-LTPP Contractors
AMEC Environment & Infrastructure, Inc.
Applied Research Associates, Inc.
Braun Intertec Corporation
Brent Rauhut Engineering, Inc.
ERES Consultants, Inc.
Fugro Roadware, Inc.
Michigan State University
Nichols Consulting Engineers
Quality Engineering Solutions, Inc.
Soil & Materials Engineers, Inc.
