Submitted by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation
The final session at the 2012 Mid-continent Transportation Research Forum featured a Town Hall discussion on research implementation opportunities for the Mid-Continent region. The facilitated session addressed four specific questions:
- What have you seen or heard at the conference that you found promising or exciting?
- What ideas presented do you think would benefit the region most if applied (or applied more broadly)?
- Which ideas will you consider applying in the next year?
- Did you hear about any organizational structures or practices that could be helpful in making it easier to apply ideas in the regional transportation community?
A review of the answers to the four questions showed several recurring themes:
- Forum attendees found promising ideas related to weather effects on infrastructure and how to optimize material composition.
- Considering congestion in the context of costs and economic growth also sparked discussion.
- The Wisconsin Crash Calendar was highlighted as an effective way to visualize data.
- Realigning multi-modal freight networks may have applications in several areas relating to economic development.
- One of the ideas considered for application in the near future related to dynamic feedback on curve signs.
- Implementation of the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) is generating attention.
- Recognizing that organizational structures are driven by politics, there is a need to have a transportation management mindset that allows for risk-taking.
- Another organizational idea that resonated with many attendees was locating university-based researchers with state DOTs.
Conference sponsors appreciated the open discussion and will examine ideas to see how they can improve agency practices.
The scribe notes from the Town Hall Discussion are also available on the 2012 Mid-Continent page.
