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C H A P T E R 1 IntroductionBackground to the Study This report has been prepared as part of a study funded by the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2), funded by Congress to provide a targeted, short-term research program addressing key issues in highway transportation. The SHRP 2 program addresses four strategic focus areas: the role of human behavior in highway safety (Safety); rapid highway renewal (Renewal); congestion reduction through improved travel time reliability (Reliability); and transportation plan- ning that better integrates community, economic, and environ- mental considerations into new highway capacity (Capacity). The overall goal of the SHRP 2 Renewal program is to develop a consistent, systematic approach to performing highway renewal that is rapid, causes minimum disruption, and pro- duces long-lived facilities. The renewal scope applies to all classes of roads. This is the second report prepared as a part of the SHRP 2 Renewal Project R01. The first report, Encouraging Innovation in Locating and Characterizing Underground Utilities (Sterling et al. 2009), examined how to encourage innovation in devel- oping technologies and procedures that will help reduce the time and cost risk on transportation projects due to utility issues. These approaches include improving surface geophys- ical techniques, using existing techniques more effectively, and integrating these techniques with better record-keeping practices. The first report resulted in recommendations for2funding of three follow-on research projects that were started in 2009. The purpose of this additional report is to document the development of a SHRP 2-funded website that provides decision-support software and supporting information data- bases for the selection of utility-locating approaches for trans- portation projects. Project Timeline The SHRP 2 R01 project began on February 12, 2007. The draft Phase 1 report was completed in November 2007, together with databases for examples of utility damage causes and implica- tions, applications of the Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) process in transportation projects, and locating equipment capabilities. After the SHRP 2 committee review, the Phase 1 report was edited, and it was confirmed on April 18, 2008, that the Phase 1 findings were accepted and that the team could proceed to Phase 2 of the project. Work on Phase 2 of the project (turning the Phase 1 recommendations into draft requests for proposal) was carried out from June to Septem- ber 2008. The draft Phase 2 report was integrated with the Phase 1 report in September 2008, and the draft final report was submitted on September 30, 2008. The integrated report was approved in March 2009 and published on the SHRP 2 website in October 2009.
