Document Library

This report updates the Critical Issues in Transportation 2019, placing a renewed focus on correcting racial and social inequalities in the US transportation system and scrutinizing the systemic racism the transportation enterprise contains. While equity was mentioned in the 2018 report, the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 and 2021 shed light on the breadth and depth of the social problems in the US. This report covers five areas of focus: access to transportation; institutional issues and decision-making; equity in planning and public participation; land use, affordable housing, and displacement; and Native American equity challenges.

The Spring 2021 issue of the TPM Newsletter is focused on transportation asset management (TAM) and performance management and features the following articles and content:

• Welcome from the AASHTO CPBM Vice Chair
• TAM: It’s How We Do Business
• PIARC: Taking It International
• MoDOT’s Partner Collaboration - Stronger Every Year
• Featured Transportation Asset Management Research
• Save the Date
• Staffing Changes
• FHWA State Performance Dashboard and Reports
• Get Involved in a CPBM Subcommittee or Work Group
• TAM Online Training Flyer

This report supports the evaluation of pavement treatments for road preservation and renewal by presenting a relevant framework, practices, and tools. Though targeted toward sprayed-seal flexible pavements, the findings in this report may be applied more broadly to all areas of asset management. A series of case studies in this report demonstrate among other things the importance of active intervention, justifications for different LOS, and the additional benefit of safety features in treatments.

Public-private partnerships (P3) offer transportation agencies a method for designing, building, operating, and maintaining their assets without having to wait for government funding. To ensure contract compliance and performance, agencies use a variety of different metrics to monitor their P3 contracts. Metrics usually fall into two main categories: quantifying asset performance and project implementation. This report presents such metrics used by DOTs. Data was sourced from a survey of 26 DOTs and interviews with DOT personnel on six P3 projects.

Workforce management has been identified as one of the key challenges in state transportation agencies. Through this domestic scan, researchers will identify innovative strategies and ventures being applied to address workforce management. Such strategies fall include forecasting, succession planning, training, and recruitment. Finding examples in state DOTs, the scan team will highlight the common elements of effective workforce management.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this research report covers the impact of pandemics on transportation agencies of all sizes and how best to approach the challenges created. The guide identifies several challenges including public fear and loss of confidence in safety, morale and trust issues with employees, loss of team building and team interactions, stress and other psychological impacts, funding and increased expenses, and other unintended consequences of response actions. It highlights a series of key questions to ask when developing a response to pandemic events, and it runs through emergency management plays for a slew of different areas.

This NCHRP Synthesis report presents nineteen case examples from a range of different agencies exploring the application of vehicle probe and cellular GPS data in transportation applications. Commonly used for planning, monitoring, and real-time information, these new technologies have many barriers and benefits which are covered in this research document.

The synthesis report is divided into three sections. First is a literature review over the history, technology, and use of probe and cellular GPS data. In the second section, the literature results are combined with the expertise of panel members and a survey distributed to 51 DOTs. The final section contains the findings of follow-up interviews with selected agencies and documents specific case studies.

As the fourth case study in the transportation asset management plans series, this study identifies good practices around risk management adopted by ten different state DOTs. Washington State (WSDOT), California, Kansas, South Dakota, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, and Michigan all display insightful practices related to risk management. From WSDOT's incorporation of risk management into nearly every element of their TAMP to Caltrans' partnerships with other agencies to reduce risk, this set of case studies takes a deep dive into standout practices that all state agencies could consider adopting.

The objectives of this research are to document (1) the state of practice within state DOTs as they implement these new requirements and (2) the impacts of implementation to date on asset condition, safety performance and the investment of federal transit funds. This research will provide states with information that will help them evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts to date and refine or adjust their implementation.

2020 saw the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and a social movement highlighting racial injustice. As individuals and agencies dealt with the many challenges and adjustments of this time, many of the issues central to transportation also changed. This addendum to the Critical Issues in Transportation 2019 explores the short- and long-term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on transportation in each of the areas defined in the original report.