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FHWA Home / OIPD / Accelerating Innovation / Every Day Counts / EDC News: March 14, 2014

EDC News

March 14, 2014

Innovation of the Month: Intelligent Compaction

Using new compaction rollers with intelligent compaction capability on construction equipment can improve the quality, uniformity and long-lasting performance of pavements. Through Every Day Counts, the Federal Highway Administration is encouraging highway agencies to deploy this proven technology on projects.

Intelligent compaction offers several benefits:

  • It can improve the in-place density of pavement materials.
  • It can increase productivity by enabling equipment operators to achieve equivalent or better density levels in less time and with fewer roller passes than typically required.
  • It can map and identify weak areas that need to be fixed before the upper layers of pavement are compacted.
  • It can maintain consistent rolling patterns when visibility is low, such as during night paving operations.

A key advantage of intelligent compaction is that it provides data that can lead to optimum compaction—not too much or too little. Taxpayers benefit when contractors can provide optimum compaction with only the effort required. And travelers benefit from longer-lasting pavements.

Road base compactor Road base compactor with intelligent compaction system on board

Accelerated Innovation Deployment Demonstration Grants Available

A recording of the March webinar on FHWA’s new Accelerated Innovation Deployment Demonstration program provides details on how the program works. AID Demonstration offers incentive funds to implement innovations in any aspect of highway transportation. FHWA is now accepting applications through Grants.gov.

Visit the Grants page on the Center for Accelerating Innovation website for more information.

Maine Launches Innovation Group

The Maine State Transportation Innovation Council held its first meeting on March 5. Eight transportation stakeholder organizations were represented at the meeting. Agenda topics included the STIC’s purpose and charter, the Maine Every Day Counts and second Strategic Highway Research Program initiatives, STIC incentive funding and the Accelerated Innovation Deployment Demonstration program. Participants also brainstormed potential opportunities for innovation use in Maine. The next meeting is set for June.

Montana Workshop Explains Intelligent Compaction

Local, state and federal agency representatives and contractors attended the Asphalt Institute’s intelligent compaction workshop on “Outsmarting Soils and Asphalt” in Helena, Mont. It focused on how intelligent compaction benefits agencies and contractors. Speakers also provided an overview of agency and contractor roles in successfully delivering a project using intelligent compaction.

New Hampshire Project to Use CM/GC

The city of Concord, N.H., plans to use the construction manager/general contractor project delivery method to complete its Downtown Main Street improvement project to revitalize a 12-block area. The project schedule calls for selecting a CM/GC contractor in April and starting construction in May. This is the first use of CM/GC in New Hampshire. The $10.7 million project received a $4.7 million TIGER award.

Ohio Signs Programmatic Agreement

FHWA and the Ohio Department of Transportation have entered into a programmatic agreement for intelligent transportation systems engineering analysis. The agreement uses a risk-based approach to establish a streamlined process for systems engineering analysis documentation, which is required on all Federal-Aid Program ITS projects. The agreement will cut the amount of paperwork and processing time needed for the majority of Ohio’s ITS projects. Currently, a project-specific systems engineering analysis is done for each Federal-Aid ITS project.

Washington Bridge Project Wins National Award

Contractor Max J. Kuney Co. won an Alliant Build America Award from the Associated General Contractors of America for the I-5 permanent replacement bridge over the Skagit River in Washington. Kuney and Parsons Brinckerhoff led an emergency design-build team on the project. A span of the bridge fell into the river in May 2013 after a truck with an oversize load hit a truss. The contractor used accelerated bridge construction techniques to build the 160-foot replacement span next to the existing bridge. I-5 was closed overnight while temporary bridges were slid out and the new span slid into place just 115 days after the incident.


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Jeffrey A. Zaharewicz
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(202) 366-1325
Jeffrey.Zaharewicz@dot.gov


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