MTC Asset Newsletter Fall 2007

Director's Message

by Tom Maze

In the last year, the Midwest Transportation Consortium has gone through some significant changes as has the entire University Transportation Centers of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). Although centers used to be all funded at the same level, there are now five types of centers distinguished by funding level and three Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Centers of Excellence (only two of which were Congressionally designated).

See the breakdown on the types of centers and funding:

National University Transportation Centers: 10 universities were designated by Congress as national centers. These centers will ramp up to a funding level of $3.5 million per year.
Regional University Transportation Centers: 10 universities, one in each of the 10 federal regions, selected through region-wide competition, ramping up to a funding level of $2.5 million per year.
Tier I University Transportation Centers: 10 universities were selected through a national competition. The competitive Tier I centers are funded at $1 million per year.
Tier II University Transportation Centers: 22 centers, all Congressional designated, and Tier II centers are funded at $500,000 per year.
Title III University Transportation Centers: Eight universities selected through Congressional designation; the amount given to Title III centers varies greatly.

All centers must have a

research program,
an outreach program,
an educational program, and
50 percent matching for the federal funds listed above.

Midwest centers

All and all, states in the Midwest fared very well. Northwestern University received both a national and a Tier II center; the University of Wisconsin - Madison received a national center; the University of Minnesota received a national center and an FHWA Center of Excellence; and the University of Nebraska - Lincoln won the regional competition for Federal Region 7.

Along with being part of the Nebraska consortium, Kansas State received a Tier III; the University of Missouri at Rolla received a national center; and Purdue University received a competitive regional center (the University of Illinois is one of their key partners).

Iowa State University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Northern Iowa created a consortium and won a Tier I center.

Same services, new program

Our program will continue to support the educational program that has produced hundreds of transportation graduates. It will continue to provide technology transfer through workshops, distribution of written materials (particularly our two-to-four page technology briefs), and we will continue to conduct research that is relevant to practicing professional.

Two things have changed. First is our partnerships. We have not included the Missouri universities that were members of our prior consortium, and we have included the University of Iowa. The University of Iowa is home to the National Advanced Driving Simulator and several less costly simulators and instrumented cars. Through the consortium we hope to continue to strengthen our intrastate alliance and offer transportation resources for the entire Midwest and the nation.

Theme

The second item of change is our theme. The theme should guide the program. Research funded by the center should fit within the theme, and the education program should focus on content within the theme. Our prior theme was "Transportation System Management and Operations," specifically, sustainable transportation asset management principles and techniques.

In our new grant we have decided to narrow our theme to "Addressing Transportation Safety Through Improvements in Management Information Systems." We see this more a matter of deepening the existing theme to reflect the strengths of ISU in traffic safety and the strengths of the University of Iowa in the area of understanding how human factors impact traffic safety.

Through our close relationship with the Iowa DOT, ISU has always had strong highway safety and data analysis programs. Through such vehicles as the Iowa Traffic Safety Data Service our research has evolved to very practical applications being applied every day by traffic safety professionals. With the help of our colleagues in the geography department at the University of Northern Iowa, the MTC will focus on a narrow theme in hopes that a concentrated effort can significantly improve traffic safety.

Projects

One project that represents an early win is to assist the Iowa DOT in developing a toolbox for the design and traffic control of at-grade rural expressway intersections.

For more information

If you would like more information on the MTC's program, please contact me or one of my colleagues listed below or just drop by the Center for Transportation Research and Education (CTRE) offices:

David Plazak, Iowa State University
515-294-8103
dplazak@iastate.edu

Linda Boyle, University of Iowa
319- 384-0554
linda-boyle@uiowa.edu

Tim Strauss, University of Northern Iowa
319-273-7467
Tim.Strauss@uni.edu