In Brief...
Presentations from the Sixth National Conference on Transportation Asset Management, held in November 2005 in Kansas City, Missouri, can now be found online at www.trb.org/Conferences/Preservation-Asset/Program.pdf. Featuring the theme of "Making Asset Management Work in Your organization," the conference highlighted such topics as asset management resources and tools, establishing and using performance measures, and best practices in transportation asset management. The event was sponsored by the Transportation Research Board, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Midwest Transportation Consortium, and the National Association of County Engineers.
FHWA's 2006 list of Priority, Market-Ready Technologies and Innovations is available online at www.fhwa.dot.gov/crt/lifecycle/ptisafety.cfm. This list represents the select few "ready to use" technologies, products, or processes that are likely to yield significant economic or qualitative benefits for State and local agencies and their industry partners as they work to improve the Nation's
transportation system. The 2006 list includes five technologies selected by the
AASHTO Technology Implementation Group. The new technologies include the
Maintenance Decision Support System, which is a tool that provides maintenance
managers with precise winter road surface condition forecasts and treatment
recommendations, and Road Safety Audits, where an independent audit team
conducts a formal safety performance examination of an existing or future road
or intersection. For more information on the Priority, Market-Ready
Technologies and Innovations, contact Debra Elston at FHWA, 202-493-3181
(email: debra.elston@fhwa.dot.gov), or Joyce Curtis at FHWA, 410-962-0739
(email: joyce.curtis@fhwa.dot.gov).
For the second consecutive year, staff from FHWA's Office of Infrastructure Research and Development are
teaching a class on "Introduction to Experimental Design Engineering"
for senior civil engineering students at George Mason University (GMU) in
Fairfax, Virginia. The class is held in various labs at FHWA's Turner-Fairbank
Highway Research Center in McLean, Virginia. GMU has a nontraditional civil
engineering curriculum that does not include laboratory requirements, as it
does not have the facilities for such work on campus. The class, therefore, is
designed to provide students with an overview of common testing and laboratory
experimental methods that civil engineers might encounter in professional
practice. The class is being led by Joseph Hartmann of FHWA. During the 15-week
class, lectures will also be presented by representatives from FHWA's
Structures, Hydraulics, Asphalt Pavements, Concrete Pavements, and Geotechnical
labs, and students will have the opportunity to perform experiments in each of
the labs. For more information, contact Joseph Hartmann at FHWA, 202-493-3059
(email: joey.hartmann@fhwa.dot.gov).
..................................................
