Technology’s increasingly transformative influence on transportation—from the design and management of infrastructure assets to the expansion of intelligent and interconnected vehicles operating on them—underscored the Transportation Research Board’s 95th Annual Meeting, held on Jan. 10-14 in Washington, D.C.
Many of the more than 800 sessions and workshops presented current and potential applications for the preponderance of data now available from intelligent infrastructure systems, sensor-equipped vehicles, drones and third-party sources, such as other agencies and the private sector. Examples included pavement condition monitoring, snowplow-fleet deployment, and congestion management.
The emergence of sophisticated analytical tools also is helping DOTs fulfill performance management objectives established by the 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). A session on the application of performance-based practical design, for example, detailed how programs, such as Indiana DOT’s “Open Roads,” are using value-driven approaches that improve the safety and performance of roads and bridges for less cost, thereby maximizing funding resources.