News
Press Releases
2010
U.S. DOT Seeks Stakeholder Input on Strategic Research Direction
U.S. DOT is currently developing a Departmental Strategic Plan for Research, Development and Technology Activities (2010-2015), and is actively seeking stakeholder suggestions for strategic research direction, research priority areas and performance metrics for research outcomes.
Where possible, suggestions should be aligned with the new key priorities for the Department, which include:
- Safety - Fostering a safety culture in our daily work and encouraging our partners, stakeholders and the public to redouble their efforts to reduce transportation-related fatalities and injuries.
- Livable Communities - Creating livable communities that provide residents with affordable transportation options to promote increased access to jobs, school, health services, and other activities for our citizens while improving the quality of life in their communities.
- State of Good Repair - Adequately maintaining and modernizing our vast, existing infrastructure to maximize its reliability, capacity and performance, to reduce operational and replacement costs and to extend the system's useful life.
- Economic Competitiveness - Achieving the maximum economic impact from our transportation investments and lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth and prosperity.
- Environmental Sustainability - Advancing transportation policies and investments that reduce carbon emissions and consumption of fossil fuels as well as protecting and enhancing natural resources.
Suggestions related to other high priority research areas also are invited. Stakeholder suggestions also should provide overall guidance for DOT Research, Development, and Technology (RD&T) activities over the next five years, and provide a high level view of appropriate research areas. Suggestions for longer term research needs also are welcome.
The RD&T strategic planning process is collaborative, cross-modal, and forward looking, focusing on articulating the DOT's key research priorities with measurable outcomes over the next five years. The process is taking a department-wide, systems-level view of the multimodal transportation system, and is setting strategies to address research areas that stress a multi-modal-oriented perspective as well as a modal-specific and modal-funded perspective. The strategies described in the plan will be designed to ensure that RD&T resources are invested wisely to achieve measurable improvements in our Nation's transportation system.
Written comments should be submitted by February 8, 2010.
Feb. 8 Deadline for Comment on DOT's Strategic Research Direction
DOT issued a request for comments on the Strategic Research Direction in the Federal Register on Jan. 8. Deadline for comments is Feb. 8.
[Note that this news item has been corrected - the original posting erroneously referred to DOT's "ITS" Strategic Research Direction. This a USDOT Department-wide RD&T Plan.]
2009
Road Weather Alert System Tested
April 29, 2009 ─ Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO are using the Michigan Vehicle Infrastructure Integration Test Bed to evaluate a prototype IntelliDriveSM system designed to alert drivers to black ice, fog, and other hazardous weather conditions. NCAR Press Release
