NCHRP Synthesis Program
NCHRP Project 20-05
Synthesis of Information Related to Highway Practices
Announcements
Important Changes are coming to the NCHRP Synthesis Program
13 December 2024
NCHRP is changing who is eligible to submit Topics, the annual schedule for receiving and selecting Synthesis Topic Statements, and how topics are submitted using a new topic submittal portal.
- While anyone can write or contribute to preparing a Topic Statement, submittals will only be accepted from the following sources:
- Employees of state departments of transportation
- AASHTO staff on behalf of AASHTO committees or councils
- Employees of the Federal Highway Administration
- Topic Statements will be due on June 2, 2025. (This is a change from the previous years’ due dates in mid-February)
- We expect the new topic submittal portal to be open in early May. As usual, a link to the portal will be found on the NCHRP home page and on the Synthesis Program home page when the portal is open. NCHRP will also send email alerts to all its listservs.
- Submitters will use their MyTRB credentials to login to the online submittal system. If you do not have a MyTRB account, you will be prompted to create one.
- Instead of uploading a document, the submitter will fill in an online form; text can be either typed directly into the form or can be cut and pasted from a document.
- Topic submittals that propose going beyond the scope of an NCHRP Synthesis will not be accepted or forwarded to the NCHRP Synthesis oversight panel for consideration.
The problem statement outline is available now: Topic Statement Outline
(Clicking on the above links will open the document in a new window. If you do not see the document in a new window, please check your Downloads folder)
Please direct any questions you may have to NCHRP@nas.edu.
Background
Highway administrators, engineers, and researchers face problems for which
information already exists, either in documented form or as undocumented experience and practice. This
information may be fragmented, scattered, and unevaluated. As a consequence, full knowledge of what has
been learned about a problem is frequently not brought to bear on its solution. Costly research findings
may go unused, valuable experience may be overlooked, and due consideration may not be given to
recommended practices for solving or alleviating the problem.
There is information on nearly every subject of concern to highway
administrators and engineers. Much of it comes from research and much from the work of practitioners
faced with problems in their day-to-day work. To provide a systematic means for assembling and
evaluating such useful information together and making it available to the entire highway community, the
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has through the mechanism of the
National Cooperative Highway Research Program authorized the Transportation Research Board to undertake
a continuing study. This study, NCHRP Project 20-05, "Synthesis of Information Related to Highway
Problems," searches out and synthesizes useful knowledge from all available sources and prepares
concise, documented reports on specific topics.
The NCHRP Synthesis of Highway Practice series reports on current knowledge
and practice, in a compact format, without the detailed directions usually found in handbooks or design
manuals. Each report in the series provides a compendium of the best knowledge available on those
measures found to be the most successful in resolving specific problems.
Learn more about the NCHRP Synthesis Program.
New NCHRP Synthesis Studies
Current NCHRP Synthesis Studies
Completed NCHRP Synthesis Studies