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The NSTC's National Transportation Science and Technology Strategy, issued in April 1999, has four key elements: Strategic Planning and Assessment, Partnership Initiatives, Enabling Research, and Education and Training. This Transportation Strategic Research Plan addresses the Enabling Research element. It incorporates R&D activities with clear potential relevance to one or more transportation modes or functions, regardless of the objectives for which it is conducted or the performing agency. Enabling research includes activities described under three Federal budget categories. For civil agencies, these are Basic Research, Applied Research, and Development. The comparable Defense Department terms are 6.1 (Basic Research), 6.2 (Applied Research), and 6.3 (Advanced Technology Demonstration).

All of the agencies participating in the NSTC Transportation R&D Subcommittee conduct enabling research that has clear direct or long-term application to the nation's transportation enterprise. This document presents a broad overview and categorization of that research, including identification of many of the program areas being addressed. The intent is to ensure that the transportation enterprise takes full advantage of this research, and that the affected Federal agencies coordinate their efforts and maximize synergies among their respective efforts.

This document, the National Transportation Strategic Research Plan, builds on the initial Strategic Research Plan issued in 1999 to present updated budget authorization data and other information on Federal enabling research. It differs from the 1999 plan in three ways:

It incorporates more recent data

It includes a seventh category of enabling research, Social and Economic Policy Issues

It contains a section on critical "breakthrough" research areas

This plan draws on an extensive examination of government documents, publications, and Internet Web sites. The principal data resource used is the RaDiUS (Research and Development in the United States) database established by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It contains R&D budget authority data and project information covering 25 Federal agencies and virtually all of the more than $70 billion annual Federal research allocation.*

Analysis of this database indicates that in fiscal year 1998 transportation-related enabling research comprised approximately $5.1 billion annually, equivalent to 9 percent of the cumulative $56 billion in R&D budget authority represented by the agencies that are represented on the Transportation R&D Subcommittee.

The fraction of agency R&D identified as (1) directly or potentially relevant to transportation and (2) enabling in nature (rather than mission-driven or developmental) ranged from 5 percent (for the Department of Commerce) to more than 60 percent (for the Department of Transportation). However, since agencies such as the Department of Defense, NASA and the National Science Foundation have relatively large R&D budgets, their impact in providing enabling research is large even where it comprises a small part of their total program. Figure 1 indicates the portion of enabling research provided by each of the selected agencies; Defense represents 38 percent of the total, followed by Department of Energy (25 percent) and NASA (11 percent).

Figure 2 FY1998 Transportation-Related R&D Budget Authority Categorized by Area of Enabling Research

Budgets for enabling research were subdivided in terms of the seven categories defined in the National Transportation Science and Technology Strategy. These are:

• Human Performance and Behavior
• Advanced Materials and Structures
• Computer, Information, and Communication Systems
• Energy, Propulsion, and Environmental Engineering
• Sensing and Measurement
• Analysis, Modeling, Design, and Construction Tools
• Social and Economic Policy Issues

Figure 2 shows the percentage of total enabling research allocated to each of these categories.

This plan is the first step in an ongoing, evolving process to guide and stimulate strategic research in transportation. The emphasis in this initial plan has been development of a basic scan of ongoing Federal research that, regardless of the purpose for which it was undertaken or the performing agency, can potentially contribute to innovation in transportation applications. As such, this plan presents a context and framework for increasing the synergy among Federal agency research programs, and heightening awareness and utilization of the results of that research by states, localities, and the private sector.

* RaDiUS has been developed by RAND, in cooperation with the National Science Foundation (NSF), to support the work of RAND's Science & Technology Policy Institute, the federally funded research and development center serving the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science and Technology Council. The data in RaDiUS come from many sources located throughout the Federal Government. Among these sources are the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA); USDA's Current Research Information System (CRIS); HHS's Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP) and Information for Management, Planning, Analysis, and Coordination (IMPAC) system; DoD's R-1 and R-2 Budget Exhibits and Technical Effort And Management System (TEAMS) [formerly the Work Unit Information Systen (WUIS)]; DOE's laboratory information system; the Federal Assistance Awards Data System (FAADS); the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS); OMB's MAX system; DVA's R&D Information System (RDIS); NSF's Science and Technology System (STIS); and NASA's 507 System.

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