The RAC Region I teleconference was held on Thursday 11/06/14. The following individuals participated.

Allison Hardt (Chair) Maryland DOT

Mike Bonini (Vice Chair) Penn DOT

Ann Scholz New Hampshire DOT

Dale Peabody Maine DOT

Camille Crichton-Sumners NJ DOT

Kevin Mahoney Conn DOT

Steve Pepin Massachusetts DOT

Soumya Dey District of Columbia DOT

Stephanie Dock District of Columbia DOT

Bill Ahearn Vermont AOT

Minutes from 10/02/14 call were approved.

Old Business:

The minutes from the October 2014 RAC Leadership call were distributed to RAC Region 1 for review/comment via e-mail from Allison. Next Leadership call will be 11/13/14. Let Allison know if you have any topics to bring to Leadership.

Regional Research Publications for October were included on page 2 of the Agenda for this call. Please remember to submit any publications to Allison.

We still await further guidance from FHWA on the tuition eligibility issue.

National RAC 2016 Region 1 host – Mike has considered PennDOT hosting but due to organization changes and workload he respectfully declined. Steve mentioned the possibility of hosting in Boston but it would likely be very expensive. Anne is going to check with Glenn on NH interest. NJ, CT, ME & VT have hosted the national meeting. Allison noted that the expectation is that we announce the host state and timeframe at the January RAC meeting during TRB.

New Business:

Review & Discussion on the “Research Projects and Results” page of the RAC/SCOR website – [lots of discussion, blah blah blah] there seemed to be some agreement that this page could be more useful if reorganized a bit with some added description of the items n the page. For example most items are TRB/NCHRP. These could be listed under such a heading on the page. There are items that RAC and the Task Forces produce (survey results and High Value Research documents). If these are elsewhere on the RAC website do they need to be on this page as well? Perhaps the page title can be changed to better reflect the content.

Allison raised a question regarding SHRP2 studies. They have received SHRP2 Implementation Assistance Program funding and will contract with university and others. What contract administration rules (allowable rates, etc.) should be followed? The group agreed that if not spelled out otherwise it would be prudent to follow the same FHWA rules as SP&R.

Camille asked if others have issues where SP&R Part 1 is funding “Centers” at the universities and also conducting research with SP&R Part 2 with same universities. This came up during a FHWA process review. Based on the discussion it appears that this is not really the case in most Region 1 states. Vermont and DC have some experience but on a much more limited scale than New Jersey.

Bill asked if other states have new product review processes with experimental features/construction under Research. Bill will follow up with those states.

Let Allison know if you have any topics for the next Leadership call or our next RAC call.

Next Call 12/04/14