The U.S. Department of Transportation's (U.S. DOT) mission is to ensure a fast, safe, efficient, accessible, and convenient transportation system that meets vital national interests and enhances the quality of life of the American people. By design, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program addresses high-priority research gaps within  U.S. DOT's Research and Development (R&D) Program.

The SBIR Program issues two solicitations each fiscal year that contain specific research topics aligned with the U.S. DOT Secretary's strategic priorities, specific modal priorities, and the Small Business Administration's (SBA) economic development and innovation goals. The SBIR Program has helped spawn many successful commercial ventures that improve transportation technologies, systems, and operational practices, as well as create jobs, increase productivity and economic growth, and enhance our nation's global competitiveness.

Volpe, The National Transportation Systems Center, has played a key role in fostering and enabling these transportation innovations and small business growth for over 30 years. Since its inception in 1982, the U.S. DOT SBIR Program has been successfully administered by RITA's Volpe Center on behalf of the U.S. Transportation Secretary and in partnership with U.S. DOT modal administrations and the Department's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization Office.

SBIR is a congressionally mandated program that applies to federal agencies with extramural R&D budgets that exceed $100 million. This highly competitive set-aside program for exploratory research/research and development (R/R&D) encourages U.S. small businesses to explore promising ideas with commercialization potential.

Through a competitive awards-based program, SBIR enables small businesses to explore their technological potential and provides a three-phased structure to help shepherd ideas from concept to commercialization. These innovations are a significant source of new technologies that improve the safety and efficiency of the nation's transportation network.

U.S. DOT maintains the SBIR Program website, which provides information on current and past SBIR solicitations and topics, instructions for proposal preparations, evaluation criteria for competitive awards, and summaries of previous SBIR awards. Over the past 10 years, U.S. DOT has funded, and Volpe has administered and awarded, 154 Phase I projects and 60 subsequent Phase II projects on a range of priority transportation topics (see Figure 1).

In fiscal year 2013, U.S. DOT (and all other participating federal agencies) is required to obligate 2.7 percent of their extramural research budget to awards for small businesses through the SBIR Program. Current law requires this percentage to increase annually, capping off in 2017 at 3.2 percent. U.S. DOT SBIR funding has averaged between $7-10 million annually over the last 5 years.

On July 25, 2013, Volpe issued the U.S. DOT multi- modal SBIR 13.2 Solicitation, which calls for innovative technology solutions to address multiple transportation needs.

The technology priority topics funded by U.S. DOT's multi-modal SBIR Program over the past 3 years (2009-2012) are shown in Figure 1.

The Volpe SBIR Program Office conducts, on behalf of participating U.S. DOT modal administrations, annual outreach at SBIR national conferences and state and regional events in order to educate the small business community and publicize program opportunities and success stories.

For example, this spring, Rachael Sack, U.S. DOT SBIR program director of Volpe's Organizational Performance Division, presented an overview of U.S. DOT's SBIR Program at the Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS) Annual Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Melissa Wong, the U.S. DOT SBIR program manager of Volpe's Technology Innovation and Policy Division, recently attended the SBIR Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. This year, the conference was held in conjunction with the popular TechConnect Conference, which drew a broader pool of small businesses that could potentially apply for and benefit from an SBIR award with U.S. DOT. Wong presented to and met with dozens of small businesses interested in doing work with Volpe and U.S. DOT partners.

Recent success stories of the U.S. DOT SBIR Program have been posted on the U.S. Small Business Administration's (SBA) website.

These illustrations of transportation innovation success stories feature outstanding SBIR projects funded by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). Outstanding multi-modal SBIR success stories include the following:

FRA: dFuzion's Ultra-Portable Ride Quality Meter (UPRQM) is a new and cost-effective device for FRA track inspectors and researchers that enables them to monitor, collect, and analyze geo-spatially correlated ride quality data in real-time from their laptops. The device:

• Is engineered to measure and analyze ride quality, safety, and comfort metrics in accordance with world-wide standards onboard passenger and freight vehicles
• Locates segments of track that may have safety defects, such as irregular track geometry or poor vertical support, and allows inspectors to quantitatively validate their findings
• Provides researchers and analysts the ability to post-process and cross-analyze inspection data for trends and data mining activities

Further details regarding the dFuzion rail applications sponsored by FRA are available here.

PHMSA Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS): Non-Destructive Quantitative Residual Stress Assessment Tool: In Phase I, a real-time scanning, hand-held three-dimensional sensor probe system was successfully developed and demonstrated by G2MT (Generation 2 Material Technology) to measure the residual stress levels associated with mechanically damaged regions in both low- and high-strength steel pipelines.

This tool successfully compared three-dimensional residual stress measurements to neutron diffraction data for validation. This improved assessment and scanning system now allows for rapid mapping of large regions and for precision focus on selected areas for additional analysis, to prevent pipeline failures, and fuel leakage.

Details about this G2MT materials condition assessment technology and products can be found here.

FHWA: S-K Environmental developed U.S. DOTWASH, a portable rinse system to clean dirt, weed seeds, and even corrosive road salt from vehicle undercarriages. After being moved to a new site, set-up takes less than an hour, and the system can process a vehicle every five minutes.

Vehicle undercarriages are first sprayed with water to clean mud and large debris. An anti-germination herbicide is then sprayed by specialized electrostatic nozzles. These nozzles deliver charged droplets that adhere to the vehicle and can move up and around equipment to reach any remaining seeds or plant matter. The system even collects weed seeds for easy disposal and reclaims rinse solution for future use or environmentally safe disposal.

In controlled field testing, this system eliminated (or prevented germination) of up to 97 percent of invasive species seeds. In addition to the environmental and economic benefits of preventing the spread of these species, the U.S. DOTWASH system can produce significant time and monetary savings by reducing inspection and processing time of construction vehicles. Because it also removes corrosive road salt, it can even extend the useful life of construction and maintenance equipment.

More details on the utility of this product can be found here.

FHWA: The Migma Systems, Inc. stereo vision system and large-scale field test for detecting pedestrians at street crossings can identify pedestrians and turn on locator tones to help reduce the likelihood of conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians, extend walk times for seniors and the disabled, and lead to safer crossings and fewer fatalities. Its outcomes are:

• A significant impact on the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
• Allows for a variety of technologies to be used for the purpose intended
• Encourages future competition and development in this area, thereby aiding pedestrian safety in the future

More details on the compact design of the resulting commercial products, MigmaIntersectionTM and MigmaMidblockTM, can be found here.