Institute for Transportation

As part of its 75th Anniversary celebration, the Iowa Highway Research Board (IHRB) recently published a history book covering its most recent 25 years.

The development of the book, Iowa Highway Research Board: 2000–2024, was led by the Institute for Transportation’s (InTrans’) Publications Group.

“With more information available than ever before, it is often difficult to break through the noise to promote research impacts,” said Oksana Gieseman, principal investigator (PI) on the book development project and InTrans communications manager. “It is our hope that Iowa Highway Research Board: 2000–2024 is a resource that demonstrates the importance and impact of the IHRB and its contributions to transportation practice.”

The book builds off of a previous effort, Iowa Highway Research Board: 1949–1999, published in 1999 by InTrans’ Center for Transportation Research and Education (CTRE). The previous book summarized the history of highway research in Iowa, detailed the germination of the IHRB, and highlighted the board’s research program in its first 50 years.

“Given the technological, computational, and theoretical advances in transportation engineering over the past 25 years, the IHRB was interested in continuing the narrative begun in the previous publication to cover the board’s history since 1999,” said InTrans Director Shauna Hallmark, co-PI on the project.

The new publication details the meaningful advances in transportation and technology that have resulted from the board’s funding during the previous 25 years and illustrates how the board and its research have had a widespread impact nationally and internationally.

It includes nine chapters—an Introduction, and eight themed chapters on Rural Road Safety, Low-Volume Roads, Pavement Preservation, Concrete Pavements, Bridges, Standards and Specifications, Sustainability, and Innovative Projects—and two appendices, one with a list of IHRB chairs and vice chairs since 2001 and another with a complete list of projects initiated between 1999 and 2024.

Additionally, the book demonstrates, through several interviews and a literature review, that one of the keys to the board’s success has been its collaborative nature. Since its founding, and particularly over the past few decades, the IHRB’s cooperative spirit has led the group to assume additional roles, such as Iowa’s Every Day Counts (EDC) Statewide Transportation Innovation Council (STIC), and to connect IHRB researchers with national, state, and local practitioners who will ultimately implement the results of the research.

Limited print copies of Iowa Highway Research Board: 2000–2024 are available by contacting Vanessa Goetz, vanessa.goetz@iowadot.us. The final PDF publication and a brief technical summary of InTrans’ Publications Group’s efforts are available online at https://www.intrans.iastate.edu/research/completed/iowa-highway-research-board-history-book-development/.