Strategic Plan for The Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center

Goals and Objectives

The following six goals and their constituent objectives are at the heart of this Strategic Plan. Each goal responds directly to the corresponding strategic challenge, as presented previously.

• Goal 1: FHWA conducts and sponsors the right research and technology development to improve performance of our Nation’s highways.

• Goal 2: FHWA engages in strategic partnerships to enhance and leverage research, development, and implementation.

• Goal 3: FHWA and TFHRC maintain a flexible organization and agile research workforce to meet evolving transportation challenges.

• Goal 4: First-rate research infrastructure is developed and sustained through long-range planning and adequate capital investment.

• Goal 5: Research activities and outcomes are appropriately advanced through effective alignment of resources, dissemination of knowledge, and technology transition.

• Goal 6: TFHRC provides national leadership to highway and intermodal transportation research.

Goal 1: FHWA conducts and sponsors the right research and technology development to improve performance of our Nation's highways

The success of the FHWA R&D Program begins with an unwavering focus on the right R&D activities to support TFHRC's mission to conduct and coordinate research and advance innovation for a mobile society. The right R&D focuses on problems of national significance, has the potential to provide significant benefits over the long term, and/or advances the state of the art or practice through higher-risk, higher-payoff research that FHWA is well suited to undertake.

FHWA must ensure that its research programs address the long-term needs of the Nation and the public. The Nation continually demands improvements in highway safety, roads that are in a state of good repair, and sustainability. Increased focus is expected on congestion reduction; energy conservation; environmental concerns, including global climate change; alternative modes of transportation; and better management and use of significantly increasing amounts of data to optimize system condition and performance across the entire highway transportation system. These improvements must occur simultaneously with mounting budgetary challenges and escalating needs to accelerate delivery of innovation, which necessitate increasingly careful, productive, and cost-effective resource allocation. The strategic approach for FHWA R&D takes these and other factors into consideration to create and pursue those research efforts that best serve the Nation's immediate and long-term needs.

Objective 1.1: Shape the Future of Transportation Through Innovation and Technology Development, Addressing Problems of National Significance

TFHRC conducts research designed to achieve strategic national transportation goals. Successful achievement of these goals requires significant and sustained research efforts that are best provided or led by a Federal research program. TFHRC provides leadership and coordination and engages in partnerships designed to address national interests. These partnerships are particularly beneficial when other public and private sector research organizations are also tackling emerging or critical national issues.

• Illustrative Pathways¹

  • Establish an effective procedure for identifying long- and short-term R&D needs and the best way to satisfy them.

  • Establish FHWA-wide R&D strategic plans and roadmaps as blueprints for addressing functional area needs through research, development, and implementation.

Objective 1.2: Strategically Invest R&D Resources

Research investment decisions are based on strategic consideration of priorities, long-term plans, and core capabilities. Strategic plans and roadmaps that outline what FHWA wants to achieve and how best to achieve those goals form the foundation for the strategic investment process. The pursuit of desired outcomes drives investment decisions. The process is flexible, but sustains investment in key areas and satisfies the need to develop or evolve capabilities that address emerging issues. To ensure appropriate resource application, TFHRC leadership performs periodic investment reviews.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Conduct the research that leads to achievement of national research objectives, and invest strategically in support of that research.

  • Conduct periodic research investment reviews.

Objective 1.3: Establish and Maintain High Standards of Quality for the Conduct of Research and Research Products

Consistently high standards of quality for research activities and products are critical to delivering high-value research results and accelerating the transition of those results to practical application. TFHRC is committed to maintaining high standards, monitoring programs and projects against those standards, and continuously improving our research performance.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Define, review, and update quality standards.

  • Conduct periodic research quality reviews.

  • Systematically control the quality of research products.

Goal 2: FHWA engages in strategic partnerships to enhance and leverage research, development, and implementation

Providing advanced science and technology expertise, objectivity, and resources, we develop and lead partnerships to address problems of national interest and emerging research areas. Coordination of research programs provides a vision for FHWA and other stakeholder organizations to collaborate to achieve national transportation goals.

Partnerships can provide the capabilities, multidisciplinary approaches, and creativity that together conquer challenges, but that could be impossible to assemble within a single research enterprise. Facilitated by increasing global connectivity and necessitated by progressively tightened resource constraints, partnership engagement assists FHWA in achieving its long-term research goals. Depending on the goals, capabilities, and interests of the entities involved, specific partnership arrangements may focus on research coordination and scoping, conducting research, advancing research results, and/or implementing technologies into practice. Some partnerships begin unplanned, but provide mutual benefits in focused areas. TFHRC remains open to these unplanned and unexpected opportunities. To help accomplish our research mission on a more enduring and comprehensive basis, however, a strategic, proactive approach must be used to identify potential partners and develop appropriate relationships. This strategic approach demands an awareness of the complete landscape of highway research within the United States and internationally, and a commitment to create and sustain effective working relationships with partners.

Objective 2.1: Identify Opportunities for and Engage in Strategic Partnerships

Partnerships complement, extend, or substitute for in-house research capabilities deemed necessary for the successful achievement of research goals.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Identify capabilities of potential partners

  • Match research needs as contained in FHWA roadmaps with potential partners.

  • Sustain partnerships by periodically reviewing partnership agreements to ensure effectiveness, relevance, and commitment.

Objective 2.2: Expand Methods for Establishing Effective Partnerships

Maximizing the extent and benefits of partnerships hinges on the successful use of all authorities and mechanisms available to FHWA. To the extent that TFHRC provides for its core capabilities through industrial or academic partners, long-term agreements may be necessary to provide reasonable assurance of continuity. The motivations, incentives, and risks for implementation partners may differ from those for research partners. In cases where effective partnerships are limited by existing authorities, legislative or regulatory changes could be enabled for future collaborative relationships.

• Illustrative Pathways

• Develop and take full advantage of partnership authorities and mechanisms, which may vary among partner types and partnership purposes.

• Encourage and facilitate international partnerships, bringing foreign innovations to America and potentially encouraging world demand for goods from the United States.

Objective 2.3: Develop Partnerships to Access External Research Infrastructure

When establishment or maintenance of needed research infrastructure—i.e., infrastructure solely or primarily dedicated to research—at TFHRC does not make long-term sense technically or fiscally, or does not assure adequate capacity to fulfill projected research requirements, external partners are considered for provision of the necessary infrastructure capabilities. Managers at TFHRC evaluate both domestic and international research facilities for this purpose.

Reliable external research facilities must be capable of producing credible work, must have a plan for and likelihood of sustaining capabilities over the required period of time, and must have a genuine interest in partnering with FHWA.

Likewise, FHWA has a profound interest in encouraging performance-based management and operations of transportation infrastructure. TFHRC neither manages nor operates transportation infrastructure; the R&D performed onsite is restricted to developing enabling technologies, modeling and simulating their capabilities, and performing limited onsite testing. Consequently, TFHRC must partner with transportation facility owners and operators to test promising prototypes on public facilities. These partnerships are mutually beneficial because facility owners and operators, such as State transportation departments, can benefit from early implementation of advanced technology, and TFHRC can benefit by obtaining real-world data from the measurement systems installed in what becomes a living laboratory.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Execute agreements with other Federal research enterprises to access high-performance computing resources.

  • Develop partnerships with State and local transportation agencies to augment internal experimental facilities with research in living laboratories.

Goal 3: FHWA and TFHRC maintain a flexible organization and agile research workforce to meet new and evolving transportation challenges

Future transportation challenges, along with quickly emerging technologies and practices, call for a highly adaptable research workforce to respond with workable solutions. Transportation problems—and the technological opportunities for addressing them—are becoming increasingly complex, requiring multidisciplinary teams, effective partnerships, and a workforce that can adapt its skills to meet immediate and evolving needs. Thus, greater flexibility in managing the Federal workforce would enhance the efficiency, responsiveness, and effectiveness of future research. Human resources policies may be able to evolve, within future legislative and regulatory authorities, to provide this flexibility. In any case, the Federal workforce alone does not suffice to meet future challenges. TFHRC continues to monitor, and adjust as needed, the composition and allocation of its onsite contractor workforce to adapt its output to the Nation's evolving needs for highway research. This evolution also governs the configuration of the center's visiting staff from academia, other government agencies, and industry. Performance management promotes and enables high achievement of the combined workforce.

Objective 3.1: Develop and Sustain Flexible Organizational and Human Capital Structures

A flexible organizational and human capital structure would enable TFHRC to develop and manage a maximally responsive, agile workforce. Other Federal research enterprises may provide good examples of practices in human capital management (e.g., simplified job classification) that could serve as models to evolve these organizational and human capital structures for TFHRC. Organizational changes should also be instituted as appropriate and feasible to enhance the performance of TFHRC and respond to FHWA requirements.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Identify and consider organizational structures that support flexibility to meet changing needs/demands.

  • Enhance human capital structure, in coordination with human resources leadership.

Objective 3.2: Define Future Requirements and Establish Proper Expertise Levels for Core Discipline/Knowledge Areas

Developing the appropriate workforce requires understanding the substantive needs well in advance because changes in workforce do not occur quickly. In accordance with the objectives of Goal 1, examination of future research challenges identifies the knowledge, skills, and capabilities needed to meet those challenges. Desired workforce characteristics for the future are compared with the existing workforce to enable effective workforce planning. This planning for subject matter expertise occurs regardless of the administrative structure, flexibilities, and limitations of TFHRC. Workforce planning proceeds in continuous coordination with infrastructure planning—and is guided by the same corporate processes for identifying and meeting future research needs—because both human and physical resources must coalesce to serve the same ends and require time to mature.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Develop future workforce vision for TFHRC by determining the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) needed in the future.

  • Assess current state relative to the future vision and create a research workforce/support expertise plan, taking into account trends and plans for similar disciplines throughout FHWA.

Objective 3.3: Conduct Workforce Planning and Management to Meet Future Expertise Demands

TFHRC conducts workforce planning to help achieve, on a timely basis, the skills that are identified as needed under Objective 3.2 above. As research priorities evolve, TFHRC management will attain the necessary workforce through adaptation of the Federal staff, in addition to using non-Federal and visiting researchers. Formal partnerships play an important role in providing growth in new research areas. Management of the workforce ensures that it does not become stagnant or unresponsive to future challenges. A flexible workforce consisting of Federal and non-Federal workers provides alternatives and options to refresh and shape the skillsets and experience of the research workforce.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Achieve desired Federal workforce capabilities.

  • Achieve desired onsite contractor workforce capabilities.

  • Augment the onsite workforce with visiting researchers and partnerships, and encourage careers in highway research.

Objective 3.4: Communicate and Coordinate Within TFHRC and With Other Units of FHWA

To capitalize on TFHRCs many potentials, proactive internal communication—both within TFHRC and within FHWA—is mandatory. Internal communication merits special emphasis because it enables each employee to see how his or her projects contribute to the larger goals of TFHRC and FHWA, and because it encourages and facilitates creative collaboration among projects and personnel.

Goal 4: First-rate research infrastructure is developed and sustained through long-range planning and adequate capital investment

As the only Federal laboratory focused on highway transportation, TFHRC develops, maintains, and operates first-rate research facilities and equipment. Doing so requires strategic investment in research infrastructure to ensure that resources are optimized and that current and future research needs are met. Partnerships that leverage the infrastructure resources of other research enterprises in government, academia, or industry (see Objective 2.3, Strategic Partnerships, for more information), including small business, are essential elements, while critical infrastructure is maintained in-house. Critical infrastructure for TFHRC includes those physical assets that are:

• Necessary and fundamental to the core FHWA research program.

• Required to solve emerging challenges over the next 10 to 20 years.

• Essential for technical support of national interests related to the highway system.

• Unavailable from external sources.

To complement our reliance on external research facilities, we publicize our infrastructure resources and allow other researchers appropriate access. Doing so leverages the Federal investment in our research infrastructure, helps sustain and enhance our abilities, fosters partnerships in research, and advances the economy by fostering small business success.

Objective 4.1: Assess Needs and Strategically Pursue Research Infrastructure

TFHRC anticipates future research needs by actively engaging the broader highway research community and maintaining awareness of emerging topics in other research domains.

Much like human capital, research facilities and equipment are neither easily nor quickly developed, so anticipating needs to provide sufficient lead time is critical. Because of the time and investment involved, decisions to develop and maintain in-house infrastructure must be deliberate and supported by trends in research directions. Developing human capital in core focus areas supports investments in research infrastructure. Researchers and managers at TFHRC consider how a potential partner's research facility satisfies some portion of TFHRC’s needs and pursue appropriate methods to access and rely on those research facilities. FHWA must strategically provide first-rate research infrastructure and ensure that physical resources are optimized to meet future research needs.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Assess the requirements for research infrastructure.

  • Develop plans to acquire or access needed research infrastructure.

Objective 4.2: Establish Essential Research Infrastructure

TFHRC adapts or upgrades existing in-house research infrastructure that is determined to be necessary to retain within the FHWA. With the support of the FHWA R&T Leadership Team, TFHRC explores and develops new research facilities and equipment to address emerging areas.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Plan and budget for research infrastructure.

  • Develop and adapt research infrastructure.

  • Operate, maintain, and continuously update a first-rate research facility that provides for evolving capabilities that meet the identified needs of FHWA's R&T Program.

Goal 5: Research activities and outcomes are appropriately advanced through effective alignment of resources, dissemination of knowledge, and technology transition

TFHRC plans and conducts R&T development to improve the state of the practice, consistently focusing on technology transition and on its prerequisite: effective communication. TFHRC engages transition partners early in the research process to facilitate knowledge transfer and technology transition, ensuring that products and results continue to advance. Depending on the maturity of the research results or technology, advancement can require further research or development and/or implementation, which can include demonstrations, pilot projects, and full-scale deployments. Research and implementation partners agree on development milestones necessary for successful transition.

Communication must take place throughout the innovation or development life cycle to create and sustain mutually agreed expectations. As part of that communication, TFHRC maintains—and shares with its prospective partners—comprehensive and current knowledge of the evolving resources and mechanisms that can advance each stage of the research, development, and implementation cycle. Examples of potentially applicable mechanisms include, but are not limited to, the Transportation Pooled Fund Program, the Small Business Innovation Research Program, the Strategic Highway Research Program, and the coordination of cooperative research programs managed by the TRB. These programs would be useful in assisting TFHRC,s efforts to foster externally developed innovations and technologies.

Technology Transition

Technology transition generally refers to transitioning technology from the laboratory to a program. From a highway research perspective, technology transition is the incorporation of technology into operating transportation systems to achieve (a) increased performance in terms of safety, capacity, speed, energy efficiency, and emissions reductions, and/or (b) reduced cost for developing, producing, acquiring, installing, designing, constructing, and maintaining operating system components throughout their life cycles.

Timing. Timeliness is extremely important to technology transitions because public safety and expenditures are involved. Technology transitions can occur during the development of highway system components, or even after certain types of components have been in the field for a number of years.

Participants.Technology transitions can occur between government organizations, such as when a government research facility transitions a technology to a government transportation department for installation in an operating facility. Industry can transition technology to government, and vice versa.

Methods.Technology transitions occur through application of the following:

• Leveraging the best technology available from both government and commercial sources.

• Transitioning the technology rapidly into new highway system components with advantages focused on safety, performance, energy, environmental, and cost.

• Refreshing the technology, as appropriate, to maintain and further upgrade system safety, performance, external impacts, and economy.⁽⁷⁾

Objective 5.1: Engage Actual and Potential Stakeholders to Improve Awareness of FHWA Research Priorities, Directions, and Technology Roadmaps and to Facilitate Implementation of Results

The national and international highway research arena is diverse and requires continual communication to establish working partnerships for setting agendas; conduct of research; and transfer of knowledge, technology, and innovation. The R&T agenda of FHWA is transparent to actual and potential stakeholders and partners—within USDOT, at all levels of government within and outside the United States, and in the private sector and academia—and encourages dialogue on FHWA's national challenges, goals, and strategies.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Develop and implement strategic communications plans for R&D.

  • Engage external partners early, where feasible, to plan technology transition and implementation.

  • Support agency initiatives, including targeted outreach, to accelerate technology transition and implementation.

Objective 5.2: Collaborate Within FHWA, and With Other Appropriate USDOT Agencies; States; Other Governmental Jurisdictions, Including Local Governments; Industry; Academia; and National and International Organizations, to Ensure Successful Innovation and Technology Transition in Accordance With Agency Technology Roadmaps

TFHRC coordinates R&T programs across FHWA, with other appropriate USDOT agencies, States, other governmental jurisdictions at all levels, industry, academia, and national and international highway research organizations, to identify areas for collaboration to address transportation challenges. The research capabilities of TFHRC provide the knowledge for FHWA to add value to the state of the art and eventually influence the state of the practice. TFHRC engages with appropriate offices and organizations to develop a technology and innovation transition plan and to accelerate implementation of that plan. Transition paths vary depending on the nature and maturity of a particular research product or technology.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Develop flexible and seamless process for coordination of R&D across FHWA.

  • Engage technology transition partners within the agency early to plan transition according to technology and innovation roadmaps.

  • Develop and sustain a process to enhance TFHRC's existing partnership with the Office of Federal Lands Highway (FLH) and other FHWA units to demonstrate and pilot research products.

  • Cultivate linkages with other USDOT R&D efforts.

  • Establish clear and continual communications for coordination and collaboration to facilitate technology transition with national and international partners.

Objective 5.3: Foster Development and Implementation of Targeted Externally Developed Innovations and Technologies

Through consultation with FHWA's partners and stakeholders, TFHRC maintains awareness of R&D activities nationally and internationally to identify technologies being developed elsewhere that show great promise. Depending on the type of technology and its maturity, TFHRC may engage in a partnership to develop the technology further or may advocate for its demonstration or implementation.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Maintain awareness of emerging innovations of national interest.

  • Develop a process to assess the need for FHWA involvement to advance emerging innovations.

  • Refine and validate research products when appropriate.

Goal 6: TFHRC provides national leadership to highway and intermodal transportation research

FHWA fulfills its strategic goal of national leadership by developing and advocating solutions to national transportation needs. TFHRC fulfills a corresponding national leadership role in highway research and technology development. In addition to chairing the FHWA R&T Leadership Team, TFHRC actively participates in leading cooperative research programs with partners including Research and Innovative Technology Administration, TRB, and the States. In support of this national leadership role, TFHRC strategically manages its Federal and non-Federal workforce as well as its research infrastructure.

Objective 6.1: Advocate a Research Vision for the Nation's Highway Research Programs

Based on the strategies described in this Strategic Plan for TFHRC and the underlying FHWA Strategic Plan, TFHRC advocates and implements a research vision that guides the national research agenda in highway transportation. As the champion for research in FHWA, TFHRC participates in relevant interagency committees and initiatives, such as the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and conducts joint research programs with other agencies in the broader research community. TFHRC engages in the leadership of national and international cooperative research programs, and leads the FHWA's Small Business Innovation Research program. To improve alignment of complementary research, TFHRC promotes research plans and priorities to university transportation centers and other academic researchers. TFHRC also catalyzes joint research projects under the Transportation Pooled Fund Program.

• Illustrative Pathways

  • Articulate the transportation impacts of broader research.

  • Engage in interagency and international research initiatives and collaborate with other agencies and organizations.

  • Pursue alignment of cooperative and complementary research programs with a national research agenda.

  • Engage small businesses.

Objective 6.2: Lead the FHWA R&D Program

TFHRC leads the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution of the internal and external research that it manages in support of FHWA's strategic objectives, and coordinates the FHWA research program across the agency and the Department.

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^[1]All the "illustrative pathways" here and in the subsequent objectives are intended to convey examples of possible implementation mechanisms. They are subject to change or deletion.