RAC Officers Meeting Notes: June 11, 2009

RAC Officers Meeting Notes: June 11, 2009

Meeting Notes

RAC Leadership Teleconference

June 11, 2009, 1:30 – 3:30 Eastern Time,

Participants: Sandra Larson (Chair), Clint Adler, Moy Biswas, Patty Brannon, Nancy Chinlund, Randy Battey, Rick Collins, Darryll Dockstader, Debra Elston, Chris Hedges, Crawford Jencks, Richard Long, Wes Lum, Jim McDonnell, Tommy Nantung, Leni Oman, Dale Peabody, Steve Pepin, Keith Platte,Glen Roberts, Jim Sime, Nanda Srinivasan, Bill Zaccagnino.

Action and decision items are underscored.

Adjustments to the Agenda – None.

Minutes of previous conference call

A motion (Collins/Peabody) to accept the minutes was approved.

1:35 Old Business

AASHTO Report

Jim McDonnell reported that Congressman Oberstar of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is pushing to pass the bill quickly, but Congress is occupied with many other issues and unlikely to act quickly. Some estimate that it will be the fall of 2010 before the bill is passed. Congress also needs to deal with shortfalls in the highway trust fund, and will likely need to do so without any tax increases.

The AASHTO Board of Directors ballot on the FY2010 NCHRP program is due on July 10th.

After a meeting with Congressional staff, Tony Kane sought input from a number of RAC members to helpAASHTO develop a position on a number of research areas, including the Local Assistance Program, Intelligent Transportation Systems, and data- and knowledge- related programs. AASHTO is also interested in areas that RAC would recommend for new Centers of Excellence. Ken Kobetsky is preparing a white paper based on the results which will be distributed to the RAC leadership.

There is still no decision from FHWA on the ability of states to use SAFETEA-LU Section 5204(e) program funds for project travel.

It is still uncertain whether ASCE will be sponsoring a Congressional fellow during this authorization.

Information on all AASHTO funding requests to the states for technical services programs has not yet been prepared, but should be forthcoming.

TRB Report:

The Airport Cooperative Research Program will be meeting shortly to select FY2010 projects; over 200 problem statements submitted. The budget has been increased by FAA from $10 to $15 million.

A problem solicitation has been released for the Freight and Hazardous Materials CRP, with submissions due by July 31.

Crawford Jencks will shortly be distributing the minutes of last SCOR meeting which outlines the FY2010 NCHRP program. Panels are now being formed for FY2010 projects. The deadline for nominations has passed, although a number of states have not yet submitted any names. Wes Lum suggested adding a topic on how to encourage all states to submit panel nominees to the Orlando town hall session.

TRB is still having some issues collecting the balance of NCHRP contributions from the states. Bill Zaccagnino noted that additional funds will be transferred shortly.

Proposals are starting to come in for the five initial topics in the 20-83 project on long-term strategic research needs. Crawford will provide more details at the Orlando RAC meeting. NCHRP Staff are assisting a SCOR task force to determine the disposition of $1 million in remaining 20-83 funds for FY2010. It is expected that the task force will recommend a broad call for problem statements for the next round of 20-83 projects. The call will not be restricted to the authorized NCHRP sources (AASHTO committees, state DOTs, and FHWA). The problem statements will be vetted through normal NCHRP procedures. The task force will also make recommendations on the future of the program.

NCHRP staff are also supporting a task force updating the SCOR strategic plan.

RITA Report:

The new RITA administrator Peter Appel is attending TRB Executive Committee meeting this week in Woods Hole. The annual CUTC meeting will be taking place June 30 – July 2 in Amherst, Massachusetts.

FHWA Report:

Deb Elston reported that the FHWA advanced research program will be conducting one of the topics proposed in the original 20-83 background report.

FHWA staff have been working with the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee and Congressman Oberstar’s proposed plans for reauthorization. The initial recommendations are scoped around national research coordination and the reporting of results and progress. FHWA and TRB staffs are emphasizing the importance of sustaining the programs that are working well, and cited the NCHRP and the Pooled Fund programs are being cited as successful examples of national coordination.

The SHRP 2 implementation report to Congress identified FHWA as the prime agent for implementation of program results. FHWA will be hiring new staff to coordinate these efforts and would like RAC members to serve on the interview panel.

The RAC task force recommendations on the peer exchange program are under review.

Lisa Williams is working with the FHWA finance office to deal with glitches in the pooled fund program.

Wes Lum noted there was a June 9 conference call of pooled fund staff in the FHWA Division Offices and asked that Lisa provide a report at the Orlando meeting.

Bill Zaccagnino reported that states have been asked to submit the balance of their NCHRP contributions. $7 million has been collected so far. Bill has been working with TRB Director of Finance Michael Laplante to complete the collection of TRB core fund contributions from the states that chose the option of providing them through the pooled fund program.

New Business

2009 Summer Meeting in Orlando, FL

The latest meeting agenda is posted on the web at

Randy Battey distributed a list of topics submitted for the agency representatives (see attachment). RAC Officers are invited to submit any additional questions and topics no later than Tuesday, June 16.

Randy briefly reviewed the latest version of the agenda. A number of issues and comments were discussed or noted:

Richard Long agreed to provide a list of attendees registered for the Monday evening mentoring session to the RAC officers. Leni Oman suggested that the session be titled “New Attendee” mentoring, rather than “New Member”, in order to include non-RAC member participants.

Sandra Larson is expecting to receive materials shortly for the SHRP 2 workshop. She will forward these to the Florida DOT organizing committee and asked Richard to make them available through the conference website.

Rick Collins noted that there are only four CUTC members currently confirmed for the CUTC-RAC Partnering Opportunities Roundtable. This will likely be an informal meeting, possibly in a nearby restaurant. Rick asked for suggestions on how to ensure adequate DOT representation at the meeting without overwhelming the CUTC members. It was agreed that regional chairs would invite one or two of their members to attend the meeting. Wes suggested that a theme be developed for the meeting to help clarify which RAC members should attend. Rick noted that Randy Machemehl has already identified three main topics for discussion: setting research priorities, technology transfer / implementation, and workforce issues. Sandra suggested that intellectual property issues be added to the discussion. Leni suggested including reauthorization to see whether RAC and CUTC could achieve agreement on recommendations. Sandra asked Wes to discuss the proposed topics with CUTC members during their annual meeting later this month and report back with any additional suggestions. Rick agreed to present the results of the CUTC/RAC session during the town hall session if called upon.

Jeff Brown will be moderating the Funding Task force meeting in place of Tim McDowell.

Kelly Leone will be the sole speaker for the RITA update.

Regional chairs should develop their reports using the template distributed by Sandra for the Thursday morning session (see attached). Task Force chairs should also make sure they update their status reports on the website.

Leni has developed a draft agenda for the Thursday afternoon Knowledge Networks session and will provide it to Mark Norman for review.

The RAC officers will meet Friday morning and identify any action items for follow-up. Tommy Nantung and Mara Campbell will attend this meeting to initiate planning for the 2010 meeting in Missouri.

Moy asked whether professional development credits will be offered for the meeting. No determination has been made as yet.

Richard Long covered some of the logistical arrangements and had several issues to discuss. Firstly, he noted there was a “double break” scheduled on some afternoons during transitions to other events. It was agreed to shorten the second breaks and refer to them as “transitions”.

Setting up meeting rooms for teleconferencing will cost an additional $350 and cannot be accommodated under the current registration fee structure. The budget is essentially balanced, taking into account the expected meeting costs and registration revenues.

However, Richard noted that there are people who have hotel reservations but have not registered, while others have registrations but not hotel rooms. If all attendees are registered, it may be possible to cover teleconferencing for some meetings. An accurate count of attendees will also be needed for meal orders.

On Wednesday morning, RAC members will be asked to pick up their breakfast at a common buffet and take it to their regional meeting rooms. Sandra asked regional chairs to make sure their members are aware of these arrangements.

Nancy Chinlund asked if internet access would be available in the exhibit table area to demonstrate the web tools developed by the Coordination and Collaboration task force. Richard will find out what can be provided and report back.

Task Force Updates

For the latest TF Updates, see:

The Task Force chairs are meeting by conference call on June 17th and will discuss the most efficient means of updating their web write-ups.

Surveyon the use ofNCHRP 20-63 Research Performance MeasurementToolbox

and Reporting System

Crawford noted that funds remain in the project budget for additional work to further refine the system. A new survey indicates that not many states are using it, probably as a result of complex and onerous data requirements. A new project panel will be formed for the next phase of the work. This group will review the reporting system and possibly make revisions to facilitate its use by state DOTs. Crawford agreed to distribute the survey results if the names of individuals and organizations are removed.

RAC Operating Guidelines -- voting update

The guidelines have been approved by ballot and are posted on the SCOR/RAC website at

Peer ExchangeUpdate

Deferred to next meeting.

John Horsley’s RAC request for research that pays offand helps the economy

NCHRP 20-24 update

Wes Lum had nothing new to report on the effort to secure 20-24 funds for the initiative, but he did note that Pat Casey is working for Mara Campbell’s task force to document research success stories in concise format.

SCOR Strategic PlanTask Force

Work is continuing on the update of the SCOR strategic plan. Sandra will provide a status update at the Orlando meeting.

Jim Sime’s Question about leveraged funding forNCHRP and Pooled funds

During the last conference call, Jim Sime suggested that it may be possible for some projects not selected by SCOR to be addressed through the pooled fund program. Using selection criteria of some kind, NCHRP would post some of these problem statements on the Pooled Fund site with a solicitation for funding partners. If enough states pledged funding, the project would be initiated under NCHRP lead.

As a follow-up action item, regional Chairs were asked to discuss the issue with their members and provide comments at this meeting. Tommy Nantung reported that Region 3 had positive comments about the idea but were not sure on the best way to administer it. RAC 4 felt that the program should be led by TRB or FHWA. Richard Long suggested that administering a number of pooled fund studies could create a significant administrative burden on the NCHRP. He further noted that the projects under discussion are ones that SCOR has already decided are not of high priority. As a result, it may be difficult to get SCOR support for the idea. Wes Lum felt that shifting the administration to one or more UTCs could be the answer. It was decided to ask the Program Quality and Management task force to review the issue and make a recommendation to RAC.

4:00 Adjourn

Next Conf CallJuly 9, 2009

Attachment 1Questions for Agency Reps

AASHTO:

  • Please provide us with the status and projection of what Authorization might have for DOTs. This should be a broad report that gives us the big picture of issues, trends, program emphasis, etc. - - not focused on research. We are getting the research perspective monthly. (Lum)
  • Since SPR funding is directly tied to the core programs (i.e. STP, IM, NHS, HBBRP, CMAQ, HSIP & Equity Bonus) and recognizing that the previous Secretary of Transportation had recommended some sweeping changes to the amount of programs and eligibility within the programs in the upcoming authorization, what changes to the current core programs does AASHTO foresee in the upcoming authorization that could change the way DOT research is funded? (Battey)
  • Some states with more restrictive sole-source contracting rules have difficulty allocating SPR funds for AASHTO operations & activities under the typical invoice payment method. In Wisconsin, for example, any sole-source invoice payment over $25,000 needs to be signed by the Governor. Has AASHTO investigated other direct transfer techniques that it could implement to allow states to more quickly and efficiently use SPR funds for AASHTO projects? (Yeh)
  • Of course the big topic is reauthorization/authorization. I'd like to know what is happening and what is expected. What role will performance measures likely play with transportation fundingand specifically research? What can RAC do to help out? (Larson)

SCOR:

  • How does SCOR value the RAC Task Force products and activities? (Lum)

FHWA:

  • How to keep track of the FHWA 1575 & 1576 obligations. Does FHWA have any mechanism to keep track of all of the transactions? Can they share this with the States? (Nantung)
  • What specifics can you share with us on how your research programs and projects are involving stakeholders beyond your agency? (Lum)
  • What are your expectations for international collaboration? (Lum)
  • A recommendation for authorization from the previous Secretary of Transportation was to reduce the number of programs and giving the states more flexibility on how to spend funds within the reduced number of programs. Recognizing that most state would not fund research anywhere close to current levels if state were given the option of funding a paving project vs. a research project (for example), what is FHWA doing to discourage this amount of funding flexibility within the new authorization? (Battey)
  • What does FHWA see happening within the new authorization with regards to funding your own internal research programs (i.e. Turner Fairbank)? (Battey)
  • What's new at Turner-Fairbanks? How do you foresee Turner-Fairbanks collaborating/working with states in the future? How is your EAR program starting to payoff, does it have implementation as a part of the total program, or is it too early for implementation? (Larson)
  • Has FHWA considered waiving SP&R state match requirements for research projects, to help DOT’s with limited state funds available? If so, what might be the qualifications? (David Jared)

TRB:

  • What are your expectations for international collaboration? (Lum)
  • Will you be going to more e-sessions in 2010? Have you done any long-range strategic planning recently, and if so what do you see changing? (Larson)

CRP:

  • NCHRP project panel nominations are supposed to go through the TRB State Representatives. However, there are many State DOT panel members serving in many NCHRP project panels that the State Representatives are not involved in the nomination process. (Nantung)
  • What are you doing to help users of your research implement the results? (Lum)

RITA:

  • Coordination of the UTC with local/regional State DOTs. What are the requirements? It seems that in some centers, there is no coordination at all. (Nantung)
  • What specifics can you share with us on how your Strategic, Comprehensive, National Research Agenda development is involving stakeholders beyond federal agencies? (Lum)
  • What do you think of asking UTCs (singularly or in cooperation with each other) to facilitate the development and stakeholder involvement of National Research Agendas? (Lum)
  • How is RITA ensuring that there is not too much overlap in the overall theme of individual UTCs? (Battey)
  • Realistically what level of funding (with respect to the current level) for the UTC program can we expect to see in the new authorization? (Battey)
  • What new directions are you moving towards with the UTCs?(Larson)

CUTC: