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A FUTURE STRATEGIC HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAMStatement of C. Michael Walton, Ph.D., P.E. For roundtable discussion: "Reauthorization of the Federal Surface Transportation Research Program" Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works MARCH 15, 2002 Good morning. My name is Michael Walton. I hold the Ernest H. Cockrell Centennial Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. I am speaking to you today in my capacity as the chair of the TRB Committee for a Future Strategic Highway Research Program, or "F-SHRP". As you know, that committee was convened in response to a request from Congress in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) that TRB "conduct a study to determine the goals, purposes, research agenda and projects, administrative structure, and fiscal needs for a new strategic highway research program." (Section 5112 of TEA-21) Highway research has yielded many advances and innovations that have contributed to improvements in all aspects of the highway system. Despite these advances, however, today's aging highway system faces daunting challenges. The American public wants safer roads; reduced congestion and travel delay; highway rehabilitation and repair projects that are performed quickly to reduce traffic disruption and provide long-lasting facilities; and new and reconstructed highways that are more compatible with established communities and the natural environment. Achievement of many of these goals is possible, and perhaps even essential to sustain the nation's economic growth, improve its quality of life, and preserve the environment for future generations, but it will require continuing innovation delivered through a strong national highway research and technology (R&T) effort. For decades, several research programs have promoted innovation in the nation's highway system. The Federal Highway Administration, state departments of transportation, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program conduct the largest of these programs and provide research and technology services across a wide spectrum of highway-related disciplines. Occasionally, special-purpose research programs have been developed to concentrate additional resources on a small number of strategic focus areas to accelerate progress toward solutions to critical problems. The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) Road Test in the late 1950s and 60s developed design standards for the nascent interstate highway system. The first Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP), in the late 1980s and early 90s, addressed a few critical infrastructure and operations problems faced by state highway agencies. It was the success of this first SHRP that led to the 1998 congressional request for a future SHRP. The F-SHRP committee conducted an extensive outreach process to identify highway needs and research opportunities. Stakeholders representing user groups, the private sector, various interest groups, and universities, as well as federal and local agencies and all state departments of transportation, participated in the outreach process through presentations, briefings, focus group sessions, and an interactive web site. The outreach process identified hundreds of highway needs and research opportunities. From this wealth of ideas the committee identified a few research areas where results can have a significant impact on highway system performance in ways that matter to customers. TRB Special Report 260, Strategic Highway Research: Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life, recommends the establishment of a Future Strategic Highway Research Program comprising the following research program goals in four strategic focus areas. Renewal: Accelerating the Renewal of America's HighwaysThe research goal for the Renewal area is to develop a consistent, systematic approach to performing highway renewal that is rapid, causes minimum disruption, and produces long-lived facilities. After decades of constant use, much of the highway system is in need of extensive renewal, which must often be performed while the facilities remain in service. The public demands that this work be done quickly, with as little social and economic disruption as possible. F?SHRP will produce a systematic method of analyzing renewal needs and evaluating alternative strategies, and develop tools and technologies highway agencies need to implement a new model of highway renewal. Safety: Making a Significant Improvement in Highway SafetyThe research goal in the Safety areas is to prevent or reduce the severity of highway crashes through more accurate knowledge of crash factors and of the cost-effectiveness of selected countermeasures in addressing these factors. Each year almost 42,000 people are killed on the nation's highways, and 3 million are injured. The cost of these crashes approached $182 billion in 1999. While progress has been made in highway safety during the last several decades, increases in vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) threaten to drive up the absolute numbers of fatalities and injuries even as fatality and injury rates fall. Inadequate knowledge of crash factors and of the effectiveness of counter-measures limits the ability to make significant progress. F?SHRP will use a combination of traditional crash analysis methods and advanced data collection technologies to gain a more fundamental understanding of crash factors and to assess the cost-effectiveness of crash countermeasures. Reliability: Providing a Highway System with Reliable Travel TimesThe research goal in the area of Reliability is to provide highway users with reliable travel times by preventing and reducing the impact of nonrecurring incidents. Highway usage and congestion are growing in many areas of the country. Congestion makes the highway system more susceptible to unforeseen variations in travel time while users have become much more sensitive to such variations. Nonrecurring incidents, such as crashes, broken-down vehicles, spills, work zone, and special events, are a major cause of this unreliability. F?SHRP will develop strategies and tactics for reducing the impacts of nonrecurring incidents by studying incident characteristics and user impacts, and by developing and applying tools and technologies for incident management and response. Capacity: Providing Highway Capacity in Support of the Nation's Economic, Environmental, and Social GoalsThe research goal in the area of Capacity is to develop approaches and tools for systematically integrating environmental, economic, and community requirements into the analysis, planning, and design of new highway capacity. Given anticipated growth in population and travel and a projected doubling of truck tonnage by 2020, selected additions to highway capacity are warranted. However, provision of new highway capacity must explicitly consider the relationships between highways and the economy, communities, and the environment. F?SHRP will formulate an integrated, systems-oriented approach to highway development that encompasses engineering, economic, environmental, social, and aesthetic considerations, and uses appropriate tools and technologies to integrate these considerations in a systematic way throughout the highway development process. Some of these research topics may sound familiar since they include some elements that are being addressed in a gradual and piecemeal fashion through existing research programs. What makes F-SHRP radically different is the scale of investment in an accelerated time frame using an interdisciplinary approach that will allow truly innovative approaches to these problems to be researched and implemented. A special-purpose research program provides a focus on these few highest priorities without losing the benefits of the ongoing research conducted by FHWA, NCHRP, and state DOTs across a wider spectrum of highway disciplines. F-SHRP will build on and work with these programs and draw on expertise in universities and he private sector. The F-SHRP committee did not recommend an administrative home for F-SHRP. However, it did recommend that the administrative structure of F-SHRP should possess the following characteristics: (1) essential quality control mechanisms (including open solicitation and merit-based selection of research proposals); (2) the ability to carry out a large contract research program; (3) focused core staff and secure funding over the program's time frame; and (4) the flexibility to institute stakeholder governance mechanisms. The same funding mechanism used for SHRP is also recommended for F-SHRP: a takedown from the federal-aid highway funds apportioned under the next surface transportation authorizing legislation. The program will require approximately $450 - $500 million over six years, or about $75 million per year. Special Report 260 provides a strategic direction and conceptual design for F-SHRP; additional detailed planning is necessary before the research can be carried out. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the Federal Highway Administration have just initiated an NCHRP project to develop detailed research plans and budgets for these four research areas and to recommend an appropriate administrative structure and home for the project. The Oversight Panel for this effort is chaired by Bradley Mallory, the Secretary of the Pennsylvania DOT and the current president of AASHTO. Four technical panels, comprising more than 100 members of the highway community and several stakeholder groups, have begun the task of producing the detailed plans and budget which are scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2003. (The roster of the Oversight Panel is attached.) Committee on a Study for a Future Strategic Highway Research Program(April 1999 - March 2002) C. Michael Walton, Chair, The University of Texas at Austin Oversight Panel for NCHRP Project 20-58
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