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TRB Special Report 295, The Federal Investment in Highway Research, 2006-2009: Strengths and Weaknesses assesses how well the investments that Congress made in research programs through the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users comply with the principles articulated in the preface to the act's research title. The book contains findings and recommendations about specific research programs and calls for reliance on competition and merit review in awarding funds through the Federal Highway Administration and in selecting institutions for the University Transportation Centers program of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration.
In reviewing proposals for transportation research programs as part of reauthorizing the federal surface transportation program, the Transportation Research Board recognized a gap: no proposals explicitly addressed research to mitigate GHG emissions and energy consumption attributable to passenger and freight travel or to adapt to climate change. A Transportation Research Program for Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change and Conserving Energy is the product of a study to suggest research programs to fill this and other perceived gaps. Specifically, this book identifies research needs with regard to policies and strategies relating to the use of the transportation system and to assist infrastructure owners in adapting to climate change; focuses on research programs that could provide guidance to officials at all levels responsible for policies that affect the use of surface transportation infrastructure and its operation, maintenance, and construction; and aims to help officials begin to adapt the infrastructure to climate changes that are already occurring or that are expected to occur in the next several decades.
Pack: Book and CDInternationally, full-scale accelerated pavement testing, either on test roads or linear/circular test tracks, has proven to be a valuable tool that fills the gap between models and laboratory tests and long-term experiments on in-service pavements. Accelerated pavement testing is used to improve understanding of pavement behavior,
There are various reasons why the road asset in Zambia has been deteriorating over the past five decades since independence. Much effort to restore the road asset to its original value and keep it maintained in a good and safe condition was initiated in mid 1990s with the launch of the Road Sector Investment Plan – Phase I, which was immediately followed by the launch of a Phase II to run from 2003 to 2013. It is my appreciation that many diagnostic studies into road financing strategies which could have led to inefficient road asset management in Zambia have been undertaken, and various solutions tendered. The author takes cognizance that resource mobilization for road construction and maintenance, and subsequent allocation to respective road programs can often be problematic for an emerging country like Zambia. It has the potential to lead to inefficiencies in road asset management as has evidently been demonstrated in the declining road asset value over time. The political, as well as the economic, landscape plays a vital role in resource mobilization and allocation strategies as much as the institutional and the legal framework do. The failure to clear the backlog of maintenance which normally results, largely, from deferment of scheduled maintenance due to insufficient annual budgetary allocation to the road sector maintenance programs has led to the significant deterioration in road network condition. Exorbitant road construction costs have posed additional challenges to the fiscus, thereby constraining both the quantity and quality of road infrastructure that could be constructed and maintained at any given time. Recent policy drives have been categorical in their preference of new road construction aimed at linking Zambia, over road maintenance, which plays a pivotal role in road asset management. This creates a perception that policy pronouncements are at variance to policy documents which promote sustainable economic development through efficient road investments and could be seen as being paradoxical in that the actual financing strategies are skewed towards road construction, a recipe of comfort for the next election challenge due to increased visibility on the ground, rather than to maintenance, as an astute and effective way of managing the road asset. The difficult of establishing congruence between government pronouncements and actual road business strategies in the implementing agencies has, over the years, posed challenges to the fiscal policy implementation. Consequently, this has often led to serious budget overruns due, firstly, to unplanned expenditure and, secondly, variations due to scope increase resulting from project implementation without having prior designs. This has led to high operating inefficiencies of existing roads due to the high level of pavement degradation, with the eventual effect of higher vehicle operating costs, longer travel-times, driver and passenger discomfort, and ultimately, higher agency pavement replacement costs. The damage caused to the economy is apparent in all this. The author carried out an analysis of road financing strategies in Zambia, taking a special look into the past decade, with the view to ascertaining the extent to which roads budgets have been employed to fund new construction and maintenance. This was necessary to establish whether there was a mismatch in allocation of resources for roads in terms of needs and policy, in which new road construction is highly favored in preference to maintenance. It was hoped that if the mismatch existed, it would espouse some paradoxes which existed between the road asset management policies and actual strategies.
In 1920, state highway engineers, federal officials, and experts from academia were among a small group convened by the National Academy of Sciences to confront the problems of the highway. The public was entrusting them with billions of dollars for good roads, and World War I had proved the feasibility of moving freight long distances by truck. But even new highways were crumbling. They turned to research for solutions. The founders of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the generations that followed took on problems such as safety, social equity, and environmental issues. They embraced "total transportation," adapting their highway research model to urban transportation and then applying it to rail, marine, and aviation modes. Today TRB convenes thousands of researchers, practitioners, and administrators every year to advise the government, solve practical problems, foster innovation, and stimulate new research. In The Transportation Research Board, 1920â€"2020: Everyone Interested Is Invited, Sarah Jo Peterson tells the story of how people and institutions created and have continued to shape TRB. In a compelling narrative accompanied by more than 150 images exploring the history of transportation and research, she argues that TRB can be best understood as an infrastructureâ€"one that people purposely designed and devotedly maintained. Despite TRB's institutional complexity, its unique mission, the vast collection of acronyms in its orbit, and the significant changes to the organization in its first 100 years, Dr. Peterson provides a view from 30,000 feet, deftly describing the social, political, and economic context in which transportation (and TRB) functioned. At the same time, she attends to details of the key events, individuals, and human motivations that shaped TRB's evolution. The author's skills as a historian, her experience in the transportation field, and her manifest ability to tell a good story have produced a book that transportation professionals of all stripesâ€"and, for that matter, anyone interested in the history of transportation in the United Statesâ€"should find both engaging and informative and an essential addition to their library.
TRB Special Report 299: A Transportation Research Program for Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change and Conserving Energy suggests that federal, state, and local policy makers need informed guidance about the effectiveness, costs, feasibility, and acceptability of transportation strategies to mitigate transportation greenhouse gas emissions and conserve energy and to adapt to climate change. The report covers strategies affecting travel and mode choice, models and decision tools, infrastructure investment options, and infrastructure construction, operation, and maintenance. The committee that prepared the report recommends beginning a research and development initiative by making a modest investment of 40 million to 45 million annually in the next surface transportation authorization that would be used to develop the best available guidance quickly on the basis of existing information and then begin to improve that guidance over time as new research is completed.