An Update on Selected Items of Interest

Federal Highway Administration Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology... Construction Manager/General Contractor CM/GC • Utah has Implemented CM/GC contracting • 17 DOTS

Federal Highway Administration Federal Highway Administration Research and

Technology

An Update on Selected Items of Interest—July 2011

2

Every Day Counts Initiative

The FHWA is moving,

aggressively, to implement

Administrator Victor Mendez’

Every Day Counts (EDC) initiative,

which seeks to:

 Reduce highway project

delivery times,

 Accelerate the national

deployment of innovation and

technology,

 Reduce the agency’s

environmental footprint internally

The EDC innovative technologies

include:

- Warm Mix Asphalt

- Prefabricated Bridge

Elements and Systems (PBES)

- Geosynthetic Bridge

Abutments

- Safety Edge

- Adaptive Signal Control

Technology

The FHWA continues work

with our state counterparts to

implement EDC initiatives

Some early successes:

Safety Edge

• 21 DOTs have

adopted

specifications

• 15 DOTs are

currently

drafting

specifications

• 109 projects

have

constructed

using Safety

Edge since

October 1,

2010

Warm Mix Asphalt

• By December

2011, 40 State

DOTs and all

Federal Lands

Divisions will

have a

specification

and/or

contractual

language that

allows WMA on

Federal-aid or

Federal Lands

projects

Construction

Manager/General

Contractor (CM/GC)

• Utah has Implemented CM/GC contracting

• 17 DOTS are Actively Deploying under EDC

• 8 States are Changing State Law/Policy to Implement

(Contact: John Moulden, 202-493-3470)

FHWA National Research and Technology Agenda

FHWA is moving forward with our internal program to create a new FHWA Highway Research &

Technology Agenda and supporting framework that will focus federal policy-makers and the research community on critical knowledge gaps, collaboration, and accelerated innovation to meet future highway transportation needs The program’s objectives are:

 Initiate a process to create a FHWA Highway R&T Agenda that defines national-level R&T needs and priorities, and a transparent method for periodic revisions based upon national dialogue

 Encourage state, university and other stakeholders to adopt highway R&T strategies

in their own programs that address gaps in R&T, encourage collaboration, reduce unnecessary duplication

of effort, and accelerate innovation delivery

 Establish a process to evaluate FHWA Highway R&T Strategies

The FHWA program entails a three phase process:

• Develop FHWA Emphasis Areas

- Post on Interactive Website

- Distribute via traditional channels

• Solicit External Stakeholder Input

• Identify & Address Program and Systems Gaps

An Interagency Agreement has been developed with the Volpe Transportation Center to support his FHWA initiative

(Contact: John Moulden, 202-493-3470)

Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) Guidance

FFATA mandated full disclosure of Federal award information for all government grants and prime contract awards of more than

$25,000 State DOT Research Programs must ensure that they report on their research grants and sub-grants in accordance with FFATA and OMB guidance for prime grant recipients given at

https:///www.fsrs.gov/ New Federal, non-Recovery Act funded grant awards with an award date

on or after October 1, 2010, are subject to the reporting requirements on the award and sub-awards under FFATA Both mandatory and discretionary grants, equal to or greater than

$25,000 must be reported by the prime recipient Reporting may not

be delegated to sub-awardees

FFATA information is available on the FHWA website:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/transpare ncyact/qandas.htm

(Contact: John Moulden, 202-493-3470)

Corporate Research, Technology & Innovation Management

The Office has made some temporary assignments as it adapts to the sudden passing of State Partnership Program Manager Ivy Harris in May John Moulden will handle SP&R Part II issues, including Peer Reviews and SP&R waivers on an interim basis Jack Jernigan will cover remaining SP&R topics and

international issues for the Office

of RD&T at the Turner-Fairbank

Highway Research Center We

anticipate adding additional staff

by December

Contact: Jack Jernigan, 202-493-3363

Long-Term Pavement Performance Program

LTPP continues to collect pavement monitoring data for nearly 900 test sites in North America and provides this data annually to the public for pavement research, analysis, and product development FHWA's LTPP Team and the Transportation Research Board's Long-Term Pavement Performance Committee held a

"LTPP Pavement Analysis Forum" with fifty pavement specialists from state highway agencies, universities, and consulting firms across the country to identify, define, and prioritize the analytical studies that will produce results that can be further developed and combined into products that state agencies as well as others can use to help design, build, and maintain, on a mechanistic/empirical basis, existing and future highway pavements The forum's output has been compiled and will be used by the LTPP Team in implementing FHWA's Strategic Plan for LTPP Data Analysis in 2011 and beyond

In addition, LTPP recently completed the LTPP Computed Parameter: Dynamic Modulus study which developed estimates of the dynamic modulus of HMA layers on LTPP test sections following the models used in the MEPDG The complete finding from this study is documented

in FHWA-HRT-10-035, a summary is in

FHWA-HRT-11-018, and the software developed to facilitate dynamic modulus computations were made available during the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 90th Annual Meeting A copy of the software can be requested at ltppinfo@dot.gov

LTPP re-initiated state visits

this past year to provide

information to its closest

partners on the activities of the

program Thus far 20 states

have been visited and more

are scheduled in the coming

months along with LTPP

webinars that will be held

throughout the year

(Contact: Aramis López, Jr.,

202-493-3145)

Exploratory Advanced Research

EAR Program New Broad Agency

Announcement The FHWA EAR

Program is requesting research

proposals for the following topics:

(1) Modeling Cement Hydration

Kinetics; (2) Video Decoding and

Feature Extraction Automation for

Highway Research; and (3) New

Technology Solutions for

Wayfinding and Navigation

Guidance for People with Vision

Impairment and Other Disabilities

Proposals are due September 15,

2011 For more information,

please see

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/advancedr

esearch/

EAR Program New Awards The

FHWA Exploratory Advanced

Research (EAR) Program awarded

two research projects on the use of

agent-based modeling and

simulation The University of

Maryland is leading one project,

and the University of Arizona is

leading the other

EAR Program Stakeholder

Involvement To take advantage

of a broad variety of scientific and

engineering discovery, the EAR

Program involves traditional (State

DOT researchers, University

Transportation Center researchers,

and TRB committee and panel

members) and nontraditional

stakeholders throughout the

research process The program

involves stakeholders in topic

identification and scoping through

meetings and scanning trips and

proposal selection and project

evaluation through the use of

expert reviewers With a full

portfolio of 36 projects underway,

the EAR Program is seeking

stakeholders to assist with evaluation of ongoing research projects

(Contact: David Kuehn, 202-493-3414)

Surface Transportation Reauthorization

The Administration released its’ FY

2012 budget request in March of this year The budget request was structured after the

Administration’s reauthorization principles, including consolidation

of programs and performance management The Research, Technology, and Education (RT&E) program is presented as one of five core federal-aid highway programs, and the requested funding level, $641 million (including FHWA and RITA research programs), represents a substantial increase over SAFETEA-LU funding levels

FHWA’s RT&E program would be composed of three main subprograms: Highway Research and Development, Technology and Innovation Deployment (including SHRP 2 implementation), and Training and Education

Although the President chose not

to submit a reauthorization bill, FHWA staff provided several technical assistance files to Congress that laid out principles for authorization legislation The RT&E provisions in both, the FY2012 budget, and the Technical Assistance files line up structurally

Senator Boxer (D-CA), chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, announced that she will be pursuing two alternatives to introduce a reauthorization bill: a six-year bill, and a two-year bill

The two-year bill would keep highway funding at existing levels;

however, level spending for two years would still require an infusion

of $12 billion into the Highway Trust Fund The text of this bill had not been made public as of July of

2011

Republican members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure

Committee have unveiled a six-year reauthorization proposal that would cut transportation

investment by over 30% The bill summary has been made public, but it does not make references to

a Research program

(Contact: Lucia Olivera, 3320; Jack Jernigan, 202-493-3363)

Work Begins to Establish the Transportation Operations Laboratory

A contract was awarded to assist in the design, construction, and initial operations of the new

Transportation Operations Laboratory (TOL) at TFHRC The TOL facilities will enable FHWA, and research partners, to conduct innovative testing of technologies such as vehicle-vehicle and vehicle-infrastructure communication systems and to develop prototype applications that could take advantage of these technologies to improve transportation operations The new TOL facility will include working space, specialized work stations that can access data resources and models, control equipment needed to conduct experiments, specialized test vehicles, and visualization equipment to allow research progress to be shared The TOL will consist of three test beds that will support the operations research mission, namely the Data Resources Test bed, the Concepts and Analysis Test bed, and the Cooperative Vehicle-Highway Test bed The TOL will also incorporate workspace and facilities so that in-vehicle systems can be installed and maintained and where experimental data can be transferred The new TOL will open in September

(Contact Bob Ferlis, 202-493-3268)

FHWA Prepares to Implement SHRP2

The second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) has been underway since 2007, and approximately 20 percent of the

90+ research projects are finished

or nearing completion With the extension of SAFETEA-LU through September 31, 2011, total SHRP 2 funding stands at $283 million The Transportation Research Board (TRB) will continue to manage the research program until 2015, governed by its Cooperative Agreement with FHWA In December 2010, Section 510 of Title 23 was amended to allow the Secretary of Transportation to use SHRP 2 funds for implementation

of research products related to SHRP 2 This new flexibility has mobilized FHWA’s involvement by bringing staff members up to speed on the program’s progress and engaging them in SHRP 2 development, demonstration, evaluation, and technology transfer activities

This spring, Executive Director Jeffrey Paniati charged the Associate Administrators of the relevant program offices to assess all emerging SHRP 2 products for their readiness and relevance to Agency programs and to develop implementations plans for the appropriate products The preliminary assessment showed considerable linkage between SHRP 2 and FHWA program goals, and FHWA is expected to lead the deployment of a majority

of the SHRP 2 products Further assessment is taking place, in cooperation with TRB, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to SHRP 2 implementation.

(Contact: Ken Jacoby, 202-493-3186)

Transportation Pooled Fund

Program

TPF

Based Training -

Web-based training is being developed

as a complimentary piece to the

TPF Program Procedures Manual

The main objective of the training

is to increase our program

partner’s understanding of the TPF

Program; enhance overall

confidence in the Program; and for

the Program to be seen as a viable

funding source for potential

program partners across the

Nation Additional information

regarding this pooled fund

solicitation is available at:

www.pooledfund.org or

http://www.pooledfund.org/projectd

etails.asp?id=1308&status=1,

under solicitation # 1308

New Standardized Quarterly

Reporting Form – As of July 1,

2011, a new quarterly reporting

form will be used within the TPF

Program This form should be

used when submitting the 3rd

quarter reports (period of

performance: July – September),

which will be due on October 31,

2011 The form was distributed to

the participants of the July 2011

webinar, as well to the AASHTO

RAC via e-mail, and is available on

the homepage of the TPF website

(www.pooledfund.org) for

download, if needed

Quarterly TPF Webinars – We are

approaching the 2-year mark for

presenting quarterly webinars As

always, we’re looking for specific

topics of concern you would like

discussed in detail during these

sessions Additionally, we are

seeking presenters to highlight

project-specific activities and

success stories This is your

opportunity to promote your

project!!! As a reminder, the

webinars are held on a quarterly

basis, and the next session is

scheduled for Wednesday, October

12, 2011 from 1 – 2:30 (Eastern)

(Contact Lisa Williams,

202-493-3375)

FHWA Partners with Forum of

European Highway Laboratories

In October 2009, FHWA became

an Associate Member of the Forum of European Highway Research Laboratories (FEHRL)

The FEHRL is engaged in road engineering research topics including safety, infrastructure, operations, and environmental issues, telemetric and economic evaluation The purpose of the formal partnership was to capitalize on the highway research capabilities of more than 30 different countries in FEHRL which have similar goals and objectives

as FHWA.

On July 13, 2011, a Memorandum

of Cooperation (MoC) was established between FHWA and FEHRL to create a business protocol to achieve that collaboration The MoC will allow quicker development and implementation of innovations and highway through increased cooperation and collaboration It will support technologies, such as the prefabricated bridge element systems mobile transporters, which were first identified in Europe to be brought to the U.S

more quickly It will allow development of methods and materials first identified in the U.S

to have greater markets

The MoC will also provide the framework for allowing States that may want to participate on research with member countries of FEHRL to do so through the Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) Program Likewise, FEHRL members would be able to participate in existing or proposed TPF projects in the U.S through the MoC framework

(Contact: Debra Elston 202-493-3181)