AASHTO Research Advisory CommitteeJuly 24, 2012

Accelerating solutions for highway safety, renewal, reliability, and capacity

Innovation in Lean Times

A Brief History of SHRP 2• Role of special-purpose research

programs: focused, large-scale program of limited duration

• Success of first SHRP: Superpave, winter maintenance

• SHRP 2 proposed 2001; NCHRP with matching funds from FHWA develop detailed research plans

• SAFETEA-LU authorized the program• $218 million, 9 years, ends 3/31/15

SHRP 2 Origin & Philosophy• Needs identified by State DOT and industry

leaders—driven by customer-oriented goals:– Make highways safer: revolutionary change– Fix highways: address epidemic of aging

infrastructure– Reduce congestion: increase physical and

operational capacity

• Success requires non-traditional approach:– Multiple disciplines– Collaboration with non-DOT stakeholders– Portfolio: from new knowledge to practical tools

to allow existing innovations to be more widely used

Four Focus Areas• Safety: fielding the largest-ever naturalistic

driving study to reduce crashes and save lives through understanding driver behavior

• Renewal: making rapid, innovative construction possible for “ordinary” projects

• Reliability: Providing management and technical tools to reduce congestion through operations

• Capacity: Systematizing collaborative decision making to achieve better, faster project decisions

Program Governance• 50+ committees; 500+ members• Oversight Committee

– Chair: Kirk Steudle, Michigan DOT– Majority of members from state DOTs

• 4 Technical Coordinating Committees:– 46% current and recent state DOT employees– 11% other transportation agencies– 17% consultants, contractors, suppliers, auto mfrs, etc.– 10% federal, police, fire, other non-transportation– 16% researchers– Plus FHWA, AASHTO, and other liaisons

• ETGs/TETGs– Transportation and non-transportation expertise

Status of Research Program:The Numbers

• 106 contracts to date, 37 complete, 10-12 new contracts by end of 2012

• Nearly all of the $218 million is committed

• More than 500 expert committee members

• More than 300 research contractors

• 49 reports published or in production/review

• 30+ web tools, databases, software apps

• 24+ pilots conducted with state DOTs

Safety: Strategic Rationale

• Driver behavior is key:– Primary factor in two-thirds of crashes– Contributing factor in more than 90% of crashes– Hardest to study; the thing we know the least about

• Opportunity: Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS):– Miniaturized sensor technologies & increased

computing capacity: can observe real-world driving– Method proven with 100 car study at VA Tech– Crash, pre-crash, near-crash, and “normal” driving data

• SHRP 2 scales up NDS for more robust results– 3000 drivers, 6 sites, all ages– Data to be available for other researchers for decades

Camera Image Samples

8Source: VTTI

Safety Highlights• Progress on data collection:

– 2,122 participants so far– 384,000 trips; 5 veh-yrs of data per day– 3,100 center-line miles of roadway data– Approval to collect cell phone records and

“supplemental” data

• First four analysis projects begun

• Interest in using data from outside of SHRP 2 (FHWA, NHTSA, auto mfrs, academics, IIHS, AAA FTS, etc.)

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Initial Analysis Projects

• Rural 2-lane curves – Iowa State University– Ex. App : more cost-effective roadway measures to

prevent crashes

• Offset left-turn bays – MRI Global– Ex. App: cost-effective intersection design

• Driver inattention – SAFER, Chalmers Univ.– Ex. App: vehicle technology to track driver attention,

warn distracted drivers

• Crashes on congested freeways – U. of MN– Ex. App: effective methods to warn drivers of

downstream congestion

Renewal: Strategic Rationale• Facilities are aging, users depend on them:

– Renew infrastructure quickly– Have minimal impact on users– Produce long-lasting facilities

• We know how to do this—on special projects

• What keeps us from doing it consistently across the system?– Lack of standard methods, specs– Lack of reliable performance/usage information– Human/institutional challenges

• SHRP 2 seeks to overcome these obstacles

Renewal Highlights• Vermont Transportation Agency piloting ABC

tools in repair of bridges damaged in Tropical Storm Irene—building local expertise

• Illinois Tollway saving $350,000 using a modular pavement technology & guidelines from SHRP 2

• WSDOT used SHRP 2 interactive design guide to select rehab strategy for segment of I-5: saved 30% on agency costs, 50% on user costs

• DOT/RR Community of Interest to share/update model agreements & best practices (7 SDOTs, 4 Class I RRs, AASHTO, Rail America, FHWA, FRA, and Manitoba Infrastructure Transportation)

Capacity tackles recurring congestion

Reliability tackles nonrecurring congestion

Reliability & Capacity

Reliability Strategic Rationale• Non-recurring events account for more than

half of congestion– Impact of these events on users is reduced travel

time reliability (TTR)– TTR is valuable to users– TTR is a good tool to measure performance and

develop and target improvements

• What do we need to effectively use TTR?– Ways to measure and monitor TTR– Integration of TTR into modeling, planning,

programming, and design.– Ops-oriented business practices, training

Reliability Highlights • Multi-agency incident response training very

well-received; FHWA using SHRP 2 material in an effort to train 1 million responders

• Assessment tool and guide to becoming an operation-oriented agency has been incorporated into AASHTO SSOM web tool.

• Special session at AASHTO Board of Directors on benefits of operations and availability of resources for states

• Easy-to-use spreadsheet to assess effect of design on delay and TTR, including benefit/cost

Capacity Strategic Rationale

• Sometimes you just need more highway• Why don’t we get it when we need it?

– Multiple independent decision points that must collectively satisfy a range of goals: engineering, economic, environmental, community

– Decisions to be “lost” or revisited, which can cause opposition and delay

• Facilitate and expedite key decisions: get the right information to the right people at the right time, avoid re-do loops

Capacity Highlights

• 8 pilot tests of tools in real projects:– Web tool-guide for collaborative decision-making– Integrated approach to resource conservation,

impact mitigation, expedited project delivery

• Building foundation in freight area: – Demand modeling & data improvement strategic

plan– Workshop on potential uses of private supply

chain data– 2 modeling & data innovations symposia, awards

Research to Implementation

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Research Development Implementation

Development requires close collaboration with users to ensure that innovations work in

real-world situations.