Federal Highway Administration Exploratory Advanced Research

Future Urban Transport

Presentation at Open Cities 2010
November 5, 2010, Washington, DC

PDF files can be viewed with the Acrobat® Reader®

Presentation Objectives

• Key Transportation Trends
  
  
• FHWA EAR Program
  
  
  • Open research process
    
    
  • Ideas and results
    
    
• Impact of Social Media on Transportation Research

Key Trends

• Aging infrastructure
  
  
• Aging population
  
  
• Energy, resource conservation
  
  
• Climate change, adaption
  
  
• Technological change
  
  
• Economic change, globalism

Program Authorization

• 2005 to present
  
  
  • Focus on high-risk, high payoff research
    
    
  • Strive for partnerships with public, private entities
    
    
  • Funding up to $14 million annually*

* Appropriated funding may vary ($10-11 million annually)

Key Processes

• Focus on high-risk, high payoff research
  
  
• Merit review is used to enhance the quality of research processes and results
  
  
• Research stakeholders are involved throughout
  
  
  • From scoping of focus areas through communication of research results

Focus Areas

• Integrating highway system concepts
  
  
• Nanoscale research
  
  
• Human behavior and Travel Choices
  
  
• New technology and advanced policies for energy and resource conservation
  
  
• Information sciences
  
  
• Breakthrough concepts in material science
  
  
• Technology for assessing performance

Smarter, Safer Traffic

• Integrated active transportation systems
  
  
• Intersection controls
  
  
• Semi-autonomous driving

Sustainable Infrastructure

• Nanoscale sensors for structural health
  
  
• New Technologies for renewable energy

New Approaches, Policies

• Applying behavioral economics to travel
  
  
• Automated transit systems and community design
  
  
• Improved tracking of fuel use

Partner Collaboration

• Research stakeholders are involved throughout
  
  
  • From scoping of focus areas through communication of research results
    
    
• Stakeholders include
  
  
  • Academic
    
    
  • Government (federal, state, and local)
    
    
  • Industry (businesses, associations)
    
    
  • International
    
    

Partnerships Critical for

• Building Knowledge
  
  
  • Accelerating research, responding to new directions
    
    
• Building Research Capacity
  
  
  • Access to new ideas and methods
    
    
  • Improving research processes, modeling, measurement
    
    

Thank You

EAR Program website
www.fhwa.dot.gov/advancedresearch

David Kuehn
Program Manager
(202) 493-3414
david.kuehn@dot.gov