Volpe Center: Transportation Strategic Plans

Surface Transportation Research and Technology Assessment

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5. Findings and Conclusions

Construction of major new surface transportation infrastructure capacity has slowed dramatically in the United States, while traffic volumes and freight tonnage continue to rise moderately and steadily for all surface transportation modes. The combination of increasing travel volume and fixed capacity is creating more congestion and inflicting more wear on the infrastructure. In addition, air and marine freight cargo traffic is growing, especially international shipments, and larger, faster ocean freighters are on the drawing boards. These industry changes are already generating more demand for landside access and better intermodal connections to the busy surface transportation system.

A surface transportation physical infrastructure system that is in good condition and that carries people and freight cost effectively is fundamental to meeting four of DOT’s five Strategic Goals: safety, mobility, economic growth and national security. DOT’s 1997 Conditions and Performance Report shows that the U.S. surface transport system is functioning at an acceptable, though not optimum, level. Thus, it is essential to ask what resources are necessary to assure that the surface transportation infrastructure remains in sufficiently good condition to ensure that these goals are met over the coming decades. DOT estimates that an annual investment of $46 billion would be required from all sources just to maintain current conditions and levels of congestion. An additional $34 billion would be required to correct deficiencies and provide a higher level of service.

The Nation’s transportation infrastructure managers must find ways to do things better, cheaper, and faster – as well as safely. To the extent possible, the advantages of new technologies, tools, materials, and methods must be explored and their movement into the field accelerated. Under these circumstances, R&T programs to help this process appear to be more important than ever. However, research for this report found that approximately 90 percent of DOT R&T resources and most Departmental technology development and technology partnership efforts are focused on transportation system operations. Less than 10 percent of DOT’s R&T resources are allocated to infrastructure preservation and renewal. R&T for transportation infrastructure has been carried out primarily by the FHWA, which estimates that about 30 percent of its FY 1998 R&T funding is used for this purpose. Without further analysis it is difficult to determine just what the appropriate amount for infrastructure renewal might be, but it is important for DOT to consider that question seriously.

Promising Technologies and Applications

In 1997 the TRB released its report, "Developing Long Lasting, Lower Maintenance Highway Pavement Research, Research Needs (FHWA)." This study was conducted to determine the technological feasibility of constructing pavement that will last up to 50 years without the need for major rehabilitation; to identify the research needs associated with long-lived, lower maintenance pavement; and to describe the issues associated with the use of more durable pavement.

Efforts such as this TRB report point to ways technologies can help to allocate resources and to make other infrastructure system challenges more manageable. However, the results of such activities can be even more widely useful if they take into account the needs and circumstances of other related parts of the transportation infrastructure, including other modes and even other applications of the same materials or process under review. Many technology categories show promise for use in the monitoring, maintenance, and rapid renewal of all types of surface transportation infrastructure, including intermodal facilities. These include the following:

Many types of sensing, positioning, computer, and communications technologies;
Advanced materials;
Nondestructive testing and tools;
Rapid construction methods; and
Advanced modeling tools and cost models to assist in setting maintenance and management priorities.

Sensing, locating, computer, and communications technologies already play a key role in many current modal R&T programs, although most of these are focused on improving operational safety and efficiency. However, the same technologies, with some adaptations, could support infrastructure monitoring to forecast and predict problems, gauge incipient failures, and facilitate condition-based, "just-in-time" renewal.

Many surface transportation agencies already have established systems for managing segments of their physical infrastructure, particularly pavement and bridges; one example is the FHWA's bridge management system (BMS). These systems help target budgetary resources so as to realize the maximum benefit from infrastructure improvements. However, each system addresses a segment of the surface transportation infrastructure separately, and cannot by itself provide an overview of the condition and needs of all facilities that must be managed. A technique relatively new to surface transportation, Asset Management, will provide a systematic process of maintaining, upgrading, and operating physical assets in a cost-effective manner, and shows great promise for improving the monitoring, maintenance, and rapid renewal of surface transportation infrastructure. The process combines engineering principles with business practices and economics and facilitates a logical approach to infrastructure decision-making. ⁴²

In addition to new sensors for monitoring infrastructure condition, technologies that have Asset Management applications include Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS). These allow data to be spatially referenced, stored, and sorted to assess the overall conditions and operational performance along a specified route between two points, not just for individual facilities along the way. The potential of these various technologies is just beginning to be realized; it is important that R&T and technical assistance efforts be provided to ensure that their capabilities are widely used. In addition, R&T resources to support improved modeling tools and techniques for Asset Management could begin to address this difficult infrastructure issue, both for individual modes and for intermodal connections.

Federal R&T programs generally have not emphasized construction techniques for rapid renewal. Hence, the development of time saving techniques has been left to the few large private sector firms and projects that have the resources and incentives to devote to such efforts. For example, innovative engineering and construction methods enabled the forty-five year-old, two-lane George P. Coleman Bridge spanning the York River in Virginia to be dismantled and replaced by a new four-lane, 1,145 meter structure with only nine days of traffic disruption. Twenty-four days were allotted for bridge shutdown, with a penalty of $8,000 per hour for any delay in restoring traffic, and a $4,000 per hour incentive for early restoration. Virginia DOT was able to reduce the estimated $117 million cost of bridge replacement by $34 million through reuse of existing caissons to support the new superstructure. Even more important to bridge users, however, this minimized the time commuters were faced with a fifty mile detour that added up to two hours to the trip between Williamsburg and the Gloucester area. ⁴³ This example demonstrates the time and money savings possible from the use of rapid renewal techniques. Recognizing the importance of faster construction, FHWA has made accelerated construction and maintenance an R&T program priority.

Given the considerable traffic congestion in major metropolitan areas, the fact that traffic patterns can change relatively rapidly, and the relatively fixed supply of infrastructure, more Federal attention to rapid renewal techniques, materials, and design and construction technologies appears to be warranted. New technology applications are being developed by the private sector at an extraordinary rate. Advanced materials and techniques for rapid construction also are likely to be developed by the private sector. However, without sufficient technology transfer efforts, the benefits of these technologies for public sector infrastructure may not be realized. R&T on appropriate and cost-effective applications, management systems, and modeling tools for construction planning and scheduling could promote greater use by public officials of these rapid renewal technologies.

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Technology Transfer Programs

Moving advanced technologies into the infrastructure market poses many challenges. An advanced technology requires leadership, political appeal, and funding advantages that outweigh the resistance often associated with long-established ways of doing business. In addition, there may be practical limitations, such as the size of pre-fabricated components being manufactured and transported, that cannot be overcome by technology transfer itself. Research into successful technology transfer programs indicates that the technologies must be market ready, address problems of significant impact to infrastructure owners, have sufficient funding, and have champions to lead the transfer efforts among peer practitioners.

The Strategic Highway Research Program's (SHRP) Snow and Ice Removal program is an example of successful technology transfer to State DOTs, particularly in Northern, mountain and ‘snow belt’ regions. This effort addressed a costly, highly visible problem that recurs annually and has environmental consequences -- these factors combine to make it a top political priority. Other programs that address relatively long-term issues, such as the development of cost-effective composite bridges, lack such high political visibility and are much more difficult to "sell" at the state and local level. For effective implementation, particularly in an emerging industry that has not developed an authoritative professional organization, institutional issues relating to establishing standard codes, specifications, and practices must be addressed.

Recognizing that R&T generates practical benefits only when the results are applied in practice, DOT modal agencies work in appropriate and different ways with their constituents to facilitate the commercialization and deployment of promising innovations. FHWA studies have estimated that technology applications and transfer for the highway community require at least the same amount of resources as were required by the initial technology research. Consequently, a significant portion of the FHWA's R&T budget is devoted to technology development and transfer, as well as to programs for implementing new technologies. Research for this report indicates that if DOT decides to accelerate infrastructure-related R&T innovation activities, parallel efforts will be needed to foster the implementation of the innovations. Promising ways to enhance the effectiveness of technology transfer include identifying champions who can work with lead states to ensure successful demonstrations, providing documentation of the effectiveness of new technologies, and fostering peer-to-peer information exchanges. To facilitate deployment, new ways of partnering between the public and private sectors and providing incentives for innovation adoption would be useful.

Focusing R&T for Infrastructure Renewal and Preservation

This review of DOT R&T has indicated a Department-wide dedication to the value of R&T consistent with the mission and purpose of each modal organization. However, for many institutional reasons, the potential cross-modal synergies of the resources the Department devotes to R&T programs have not yet been realized. A notable exception is the ITS Joint Program Office which, after several years of effort, has succeeded in providing a focus for ITS technologies for highway use and traffic operations, and for transit vehicles and operators. JPO is sponsoring the development of programs that include highway, transit, railroad, and maritime interests, as well as intermodal issues.

A similar, coordinated Department-wide R&T effort could focus on harnessing the benefits of these and other useful technologies, as well as advanced materials, and applying them to infrastructure condition monitoring, maintenance, and rapid renewal. FHWA’s current infrastructure-related R&T programs provide a platform on which to build a broader Departmental effort. The Department could also focus efforts to seek cross-modal applications, explore and implement cross-modal synergies, and facilitate transfers of technology applications across modes. To meet the Department's goal of improving intermodal linkages, some joint efforts among highway, port, airport, transit and rail research groups for surface transport infrastructure technology development and applications seem to be warranted. In addition, the Department may choose to initiate cooperative interagency R&T programs to realize technology benefits from other Federal agencies.

To accomplish all this successfully, the DOT may want to consider establishing a center or focal point for infrastructure preservation that would concentrate on issues associated with physical infrastructure monitoring, maintenance, and rapid renewal. This center could track progress against benchmark goals, established by consensus among R&T experts. These goals might include such items as increasing estimated pavement life by 10 years across the states; reducing time required for maintenance, construction, and reconstruction by a reasonable percentage; and reducing or eliminating user time lost through reconstruction. Having identified the importance of benchmarks, it is only fair to reiterate that gains in infrastructure condition from new technologies become apparent only over time. The challenge of fitting physical infrastructure-related R&T programs into the framework of the Government Performance and Results Act is readily acknowledged.

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