Letter Report on Review of the U.S. DOT Strategic Plan for Research, Development, and Technology 2013-2018 (2013)

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5 administration are mode specific, and this specificity represents the way U.S. transportation policy has been implemented for decades. As a result, most of the research programs funded within the department are mode specific and have little flexibility to pursue multi- and cross-modal opportunities. The RD&T maturity levels of the modal administrations also vary widely, especially with regard to strategic planning. The varied roles of the U.S. DOT’s modal administrations also have a strong influence on the research portfolios of both the individual administrations and the agency as a whole. The administrations for railroads, pipelines, motor carriers, and automobiles serve largely as safety regulators. However, the research programs of the administrations devoted to highways, transit, and aviation focus on providing resources and expertise on system connectivity, operations, and maintenance. These research programs support the work of the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control service and of state, county, and local departments of transportation, transit agencies, and airports responsible for transportation infrastructure. This disparate set of missions, coupled with mode-specific funding mechanisms, makes the creation of a unified RD&T plan a significant challenge. The resulting lack of a rational, coherent approach to the U.S. transportation system is a serious handicap that is worsening with time, and the importance of this handicap cannot be understated. In addition, the department’s long-term strategic planning has been constrained in recent years by a continued series of short-term funding authorizations. The previous aviation authorization legislation was subject to dozens of short-term extensions. Authorization of the highway and transit programs was delayed and extended multiple times over a 2-year period. MAP-21 is only a 2-year bill that expires in 18 months. An environment of continued uncertainty regarding both short- and long-term funding is not one in which long-term strategic planning and supportive research activities can thrive. Despite these and other challenges facing the department, strategic planning for transportation RD&T is vitally important. Without a well-articulated plan, there is less assurance that the department’s well-intentioned efforts will serve the goals it is striving to achieve. CURRENT DRAFT OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN The February 2013 draft of the strategic plan is divided into five chapters that correspond to each of the department’s five strategic goals: safety, state of good repair, economic competitiveness, livable communities, and environmental sustainability. Each chapter begins by listing relevant strategic system outcomes. This introduction is followed by sections that describe research for each of the modes and a section on cross-cutting research. At the end of each chapter is a list of proposed performance measures that relate back to the strategic outcomes. The committee commends the general readability of the current draft and the department’s attempt to overcome modal constraints by organizing the document according to well-defined departmental goals instead of modes. The inclusion of performance measures is useful, although the particular measures included generally describe transportation system performance instead of the impact of RD&T. Some required details were also missing from the plan; these included information about the share of departmental resources allocated to research in each goal area, examples of important

6 contributions of previous and current RD&T efforts, and information about how performers of the research are chosen. Previous Guidance The current review of the U.S. DOT’s RD&T strategic plan is the second required by authorization legislation for surface transportation. In 2005, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) required the department to develop a strategic plan and charged the NRC with an independent review. The NRC’s 2006 review recognized the short time the department was provided in which to prepare a plan and described what a strategic plan “could and should do” given the constraints described above.2 The current committee’s assessment of the 2013 draft is given in the sections that follow; the headings used are taken from the 2006 report, a copy of which is attached. Articulate the Role and Value of U.S. DOT’s RD&T The draft plan does not make a sufficiently strong case for the role and value of the RD&T undertaken by the U.S. DOT, whether for the department as a whole or at the administration level. Although there is a section entitled “The Role of Federal Transportation RD&T,” the overview it gives of the valuable role that the department’s research plays is very general. The draft plan does point out that, “[b]ecause the Federal Government owns and operates only limited portions of the Nation’s transportation system, RD&T investment represents one of the most effective ways in which the Federal Government can contribute to the improvement of our transportation system” (p. 8). The plan then describes some of the responsibilities facing the U.S. DOT in the most general of terms, with no mention of any measure of the value of the department’s research programs or how they support departmental priorities. A plan that explained how research supports the department’s congressionally mandated regulatory role and its workforce development role, as well has how research helps ensure cost-effective investment of federal resources, would make a much stronger case about the value of departmental research. Highlight and Promote Ways to Overcome Constraints to Strategic RD&T Investment The draft plan does not highlight the reduction in constraints that has occurred since the passage of SAFETEA-LU in 2005. Most notable are the lack of research earmarks in MAP-21 and the reduction in the number of narrowly designated research topics that Congress expects the department to address. As a result, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration are now facing the welcome but difficult challenge of identifying and prioritizing their research funding. The lack of earmarks has been particularly notable in the UTC program, as it has allowed RITA to award all funding for the program competitively, thereby enhancing the potential for more effective returns on the research investment, even with additional costs to manage the new program. Many of the administrative and institutional hurdles to strategic planning remain, and the strategic plan could identify and promote ways for the administrations to collaborate and overcome these constraints. 2 Committee on the Review of the U.S. DOT Strategic Plan for Research and Development Letter Report: August 2006 (Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2006), http://www.trb.org/Main/Public/Blurbs/157676.aspx.

7 Describe the RD&T Program in Various Dimensions to Inform Decisions As pointed out in the NRC’s 2006 letter report, a strategic plan can inform decisions about priority topics that research should address and about the nature of the research that is needed to address these topics.3 As illustrated above in the section on critical RD&T issues and opportunities, transportation is facing many large-scale, overarching issues that a good strategic plan ought to address. The draft RD&T plan identifies the priority areas that will serve the department’s strategic goals, but it would benefit from providing advice to policy makers about the kinds of research needed to achieve the goals. Almost all of the department’s RD&T is highly applied research designed to make incremental improvements in addressing current problems. The dominance of applied research has long proven beneficial and is appropriate given the regulatory roles of most of the modal administrations. Some research topics, however, require the development of new knowledge and understanding derived from basic or advanced research.4 For example, solving problems of human systems integration with increased vehicle automation would seem to benefit from longer-term basic research as well as near- term applied research. The current draft of the strategic plan states that “DOT operating administrations will use the DOT RD&T Strategic Plan internally to refine their RD&T strategic plans” (p. 5). The content of the presentations to the committee during its February 2013 meeting suggests that exactly the opposite has occurred within the department in the past. Individual operating administrations have created their own strategic plans that are based on the administration’s scope and priorities. Some of these individual strategic plans, including those of the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, appear to be strong and well conceived, but they do not appear to be informed by a department-wide RD&T strategic planning process. The renewed emphasis on strategic planning required by MAP-21 may help provide more departmental direction to these modal plans. Identify Gaps in Cross-Modal Policy and Systems Research Because the department’s research is primarily mode specific, little opportunity exists for policy or systems research affecting all modes. Under SAFETEA-LU, for example, the department had scarcely any resources for examining national policy issues at a multi- or cross-modal level. Better insight into how the various modes, both collectively and individually, serve national goals would be helpful to national policy makers, as would information on the areas in which modal policy changes might improve safety, economic competitiveness, or the environment. Collaboration between the U.S. DOT and other research organizations that perform related policy and systems research may have increased since the 2006 strategic plan, but the current draft plan does not provide substantive details. Identification of gaps in research, by topic and type, would inform policy makers about important areas that are being neglected for want of resources. Promote Efficient and Effective Research Processes The current plan provides little information about the development of research processes that would improve the performance of the department’s many research programs. Instead, it focuses primarily on the department’s stated priorities under the five strategic goals listed above. Little information is 3 Committee on the Review of the U.S. DOT Strategic Plan for Research and Development Letter Report: August 2006, http://www.trb.org/Main/Public/Blurbs/157676.aspx. 4 Research and Technology Coordinating Committee Letter Report: December 2005 (Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C, 2005). http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/reports/rtcc_december_2005.pdf