MTC News: Year Four (2003) Progress Report

From the Director

In its first four years, the MTC has evolved into a close-knit partnership of six universities focused on integrating asset management topics into mainstream practice. During this time, we have created education, research, and technology transfer programs that recognize and respond to the needs of practitioners from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.

The transportation industry faces a serious long-term shortage of entrants into the workforce. So, our first priority has been to improve the ability of the region to provide human capital that understands asset management and how it fits with transportation topics and issues. Attracting students into the field, engaging them in advanced research, and creating opportunities to become involved with practitioners has been a hallmark of the MTC’s efforts.

We began by adding quality and strength to the transportation programs of our member schools and created programs at two schools. Specifically, the University of Northern Iowa began developing courses, attracting students, and becoming actively involved with local transportation agencies the first year, and Lincoln University initiated a co-op program with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). We now have transportation coursework integrated across six schools and several disciplines, and each year we help more than 30 graduate students complete advanced academic study. Many of our students pursue faculty-level initiatives after they graduate.

Our transportation seminar series is a vivid example of the next stage of our partnership. The series builds advanced videoconferencing technology into the educational curriculum. Now, every Friday morning during the spring semester, we bring students and faculty from our partner universities together with state and local practitioners to learn and discuss issues emerging from a rapidly evolving knowledge base; a field of national experts focuses the discussions. So far the series has provided a forum for nearly 60 joint discussions, and just this year, we made the series web-accessible for the general public, alumni, and other practitioners.

As we continue to develop human capital, the MTC-sponsored research program brings new concepts into the spectrum. Leveraged research projects were developed regionally during each year of the program and selected using a Request for Proposal (RFP) process specifically designed to encourage practitioner involvement (and selection). Results of the projects awarded during the first and second years are now generally at or nearing completion and starting to expand outward from the stakeholder groups that were initially involved. In addition to print and web media, investigators disseminate findings at conferences, committee meetings, and other presentation events.

A shining example of the research involves a project to integrate global positioning systems (GPS) data collection methods into an asset management database administered by the Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT). This effort leveraged the MTC’s regional focus on asset management with Iowa State University’s peripheral expertise in remote sensing. In addition to engaging the Iowa DOT, the project also caught the attention of the National Consortium on Remote Sensing in Transportation Infrastructure, an effort to commercialize developments from space and defense programs.

Technology transfer (outreach) is perhaps the most significant and complex goal of the MTC. It requires weaving together many levels of interpretation, expression, and involvement in order to turn research and education into common knowledge and open market practice. Eventually, the consortium takes a back seat to industry’s leadership in putting emerging concepts and talents to work. Consequently, we engage practitioners before, during, and after the formalized processes are involved in developing people and methods.

In 2001, the MTC played a key role in planning, financing, and carrying out the fourth annual National Transportation Asset Management workshop in Madison, Wisconsin. This event engaged several hundred participants from the federal, state, local, private, and academic sectors to focus on policy concepts, techniques, and data collection methods. In 2002, the MTC sponsored a similar workshop in Kansas City that provided most regional planning commissions throughout Iowa and Missouri with the background to assist small cities and rural counties with Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34 (GASB 34). Currently, the MTC and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) are creating an asset management institute and planning other workshops at the regional and national levels.
As we begin our fifth year of operation, we will improve the functional capacity that has developed from the program, while at the same time directly carrying out a broad range of education, research, and technology transfer activities. Current activities are focused on asset management concepts and developing tools and techniques for maximizing efficiency between both infrastructure and rolling stock. The consortium’s involvement grows, and the individual programs of our member schools expand upon this purpose each year.