InTrans / Apr 02, 2025
CTRE researchers find NCHRP success
Center for Transportation Research and Education (CTRE) researchers conducted work in 2024 on an impressive range of topics, including estimating funding for asset maintenance, managing risk at state agencies, improving traffic signal timing and performance, formulating strategies for excessive speeding, and developing transportation data management plans.
And those are just the projects the center has underway that are funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP).
CTRE has seven active projects, all awarded in 2024, with the competitive NCHRP, which, per its 2024 annual report, is a “practical, applied research program that produces implementable products addressing day-to-day problems faced by transportation practitioners and managers.” The seven CTRE projects represent a total of nearly $3.5 million.
“Our recent success with NCHRP is a testament to our center’s reputation and the expertise of our researchers,” said CTRE Director Omar Smadi, who is also principal investigator (PI) on two of the seven active NCHRP projects. “Also, since department of transportation representatives across the nation serve on the research panels, it allows them to become more familiar with our researchers and our work, which could help win future projects.”
The seven active projects, led by five CTRE researchers, are as follows (with the PI in parentheses):
- Evaluation of the Traffic Signal Timing Manual, Third Edition (Christopher Day)
- Guide for Long-Term Automatic Traffic Signal Performance Measurement Systems Applications (Day)
- Integrated Strategies for Managing Excessive Travel Speed to Improve Safety Performance (Shauna Hallmark)
- Data Subsystems and Data Management Plans for Traffic Management Systems (Skylar Knickerbocker)
- Transportation Enterprise Data Warehouse Implementation Guide (Inya Nlenanya)
- Funding Needs for Maintenance and Preservation of Transportation Assets (Smadi)
- Integrating Performance Management, Risk Management, and Process Improvement: A Guide (Smadi).
Smadi added, “As project PIs, this gives us the opportunity to contribute at the national level and advance the state of the practice and art in these specific topics.”