This appendix provides details on the observations and analysis
on which the committee's recommendations in the body of this report
are based. Following a brief introduction, each of the four major
recommendations is addressed in turn.
INTRODUCTION
The observations and analysis presented in this appendix are
based on the following:
The committee understands that the NSTC initiative to develop
an integrated transportation R&D agenda is occurring against
the backdrop of concerns about the allocation of diminishing federal
funds for science and technology, attempts to fulfill the requirements
of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, and the
focus on transportation engendered by the ongoing debate over
reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency
Act of 1991. The committee also recognizes the institutional
and cultural obstacles that must be overcome in developing and
implementing a transportation R&D agenda that coordinates
activities across the modal administrations within DOT, as well
as across various federal agencies. The committee's awareness
of these issues informs its recommendations and the observations
and analysis that follow.
1. SUSTAINING AND STRENGTHENING THE STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS
The transportation S&T strategy under development by the
NSTC Transportation R&D Committee aims to establish a process
for ensuring that federal investment in transportation research
conducted by all agencies is:
On the basis of its discussions with members of the Transportation
S&T Strategy Team and other representatives of federal agencies,
the committee determined that the emerging strategic planning
process offers the potential for more cost-effective R&D through
an integrated focus on the highest-priority R&D needs. In
the committee's view, such a process is a necessary tool to obtain
a higher return on federal R&D investment in a time when research
budgets are under pressure. Transportation R&D takes place
in several modal administrations within DOT, as well as in several
agencies across the federal government, and spans a wide variety
of topics. Some state departments of transportation also have
significant R&D programs. A process that focuses and coordinates
such diverse R&D activities offers possibilities for prioritizing
limited resources; eliminating duplication; and identifying research
areas that are not of high priority for any single agency or modal
administration, but offer potentially high pay-off for the transportation
system as a whole. Actions to meet transportation R&D needs
can also be enhanced through cost sharing by the federal government,
industry, and other partners, and leveraging of ongoing R&D
activities both within and outside federal agencies.
1a. The transportation S&T strategic planning process
should be continued over the long term and institutionalized.
The committee recognizes the effort to date in developing
a transportation S&T strategy as a good first step. However,
the current planning initiative needs to be continued over the
next several years if it is to result in a national transportation
R&D strategy with broad constituency involvement and support
that is capable of forming a basis for OMB/OSTP annual R&D
budget guidance to DOT modal administrations and other federal
agencies (see 2b below).
The committee identified three areas worthy of consideration
by the Strategy Team in its efforts to support the current initiative
through its formative stages.
First, ownership of the strategy by all major stakeholders in
the transportation community is vital to its ultimate survival.
To date, only representatives of federal agencies have been directly
involved in the strategic planning process. The committee's suggestions
for broadening constituent involvement in the planning process
and in the implementation of the strategy are discussed in Sections
1b and 1c and in Section 3, respectively.
To maximize ownership of the strategy within federal agencies,
various groups must be targeted. For example, the committee considers
that participation of the highest-level administrators in the
planning process is necessary if the strategy is ultimately to
have the desired programmatic and budgetary impacts. The involvement
of first- and mid-level managers and researchers would be beneficial
in developing the transportation R&D agenda and obtaining
"buy-in" through active participation in the strategic
planning process.
The committee observed that agencies outside DOT have generally
been active participants in developing the strategy, with resulting
benefits of enhanced communication (see Section 3 below). It
is the committee's understanding that the National Science Foundation
(NSF), although a latecomer, is now involved in the strategic
planning process, thereby providing the necessary participation
by an important sector of the federally funded research community.
The committee was concerned by the apparent lack of ownership
of the strategy by senior-level managers within DOT, and urges
the Strategy Team to address this issue as soon as possible.
Recognition of the diverse roles of R&D within DOT (and other
agencies) could be helpful in encouraging ownership, as could
explicit mention of the role of R&D specific to individual
modes (see 2c below). In addition, the R&D needs of agencies
and DOT modal administrations in developing and responding to
regulations should be clearly acknowledged in the strategy.
Second, the committee suggests that the strategy integrate top-down
and bottom-up approaches to developing a transportation R&D
agenda. The NSTC Transportation R&D Committee should view
its role as one of establishing a bridge between the Administration's
national transportation goals and the R&D activities of individual
federal agencies and modal administrations within DOT. Although
the current strategy document articulates a set of strategic goals
and measures, the linkages between these objectives and ongoing
federal R&D are not clearly defined. The planning process
to date appears to have been primarily top-down. Broadening constituency
involvement, both within and outside the federal agencies, would
add an important bottom-up component to the strategy.
Third, while recognizing the significant benefits of an integrated
approach to transportation R&D strategic planning, the committee
urges caution in expanding the process. Resource requirements
for planning should not be allowed to escalate to a level where
they are no longer commensurate with the advantages of a coordinated
transportation R&D agenda. Strategy development should be
viewed as a means to an end and not as an end in itself, and resources
should be allocated accordingly. The committee found the present
collaborative approach to planning by a small team of partners,
if supplemented by constituent involvement as recommended in this
report, to be appropriate and more likely to foster support for
the strategy than planning by a centralized, controlling bureaucracy.
1b. The strategic planning process should be extended
to include participants from the diverse constituencies in the
transportation community. In the committee's view, it
is essential that the planning process include representatives
of industry, academia, state departments of transportation, port
authorities, environmental constituencies, nongovernmental organizations,
users of transportation systems, and other groups that make up
the decentralized transportation enterprise. Such an approach
offers important potential advantages. The involvement of a broad
spectrum of participants is necessary to identify R&D requirements,
including those in areas that are not technology-based such as
ways of overcoming barriers to technology implementation, policy,
and human behavior. In addition, such involvement can enhance
opportunities to identify and leverage ongoing transportation-related
R&D, as well as possibilities for identifying organizations
capable of performing the most cost-effective R&D, whether
they be in government, industry, or academia.
The committee views the participation of U.S. industry in the
strategic planning process as particularly important, given the
experience of the private sector in developing outcome-oriented
R&D agendas and assessing their results. In addition, industry
has a major role to play in incorporating technological innovations
into practical transportation-related applications in an expeditious
manner. (The need to develop methods for technology transfer
and implementation is highlighted in Section 3.) The committee
therefore suggests that the possibility of devising incentives
to encourage industry participation be considered as the strategic
planning process moves forward. For example, awarding contracts
on the basis of "best buy" life-cycle cost analysis,
rather than to the lowest bidder, could encourage private investment
in new and improved technologies. Mechanisms for improving the
dialogue between the public and private sectors could also be
beneficial.
1c. Greater emphasis should be placed on the iterative
nature of the strategic planning process. The committee
considers it important that lessons learned in developing the
strategy be taken into account as the strategic planning process
evolves. The committee therefore suggests that the process be
updated periodically and that mechanisms be established for incorporating
feedback on both achievements and failures from previous planning
cycles.
2. STRENGTHENING THE STRATEGY
The committee identified a number of opportunities for strengthening
the transportation S&T strategy as the planning process proceeds.
2a. The proposed R&D activities should be prioritized.
The current transportation S&T strategy makes no attempt
to prioritize the activities listed on the R&D agenda. The
committee recognizes that the strategic planning process is at
an early stage and that developing a robust set of priorities
capable of surviving political change is a challenge. Nonetheless,
the committee considers the term "strategy" to be a
misnomer for a planning process that fails to incorporate priorities
within overall resource constraints. Therefore, the committee
urges the Transportation S&T Strategy Team to prioritize its
R&D agenda at the earliest opportunity, preferably in cooperation
with a broad spectrum of constituents and not simply federal agencies.
Such priorities could be used in conjunction with assessments
of economic pay-off and other public benefits to allocate federal
funding for various projects (see 2b below). (The strategy does
not currently provide any budget information.) The committee
noted that representatives from NASA have worked with customers
to develop an investment strategy for a portfolio of R&D projects
designed to meet outcome-oriented goals.
The transportation S&T strategy does not include schedules
and milestones for R&D activities. While the committee understands
that this deficiency will be rectified as the planning process
proceeds, it has difficulty in envisaging the rational development
of a transportation R&D portfolio with meaningful short-,
medium-, and long-term goals without a set of priorities having
been established. In developing schedules, the different time
horizons of different groups in the transportation industry need
to be recognized. In some instances, such as interstate highway
construction, long lead times are required to implement new technologies.
2b. The strategy should be explicitly linked to transportation
R&D budget guidance. The committee determined that
successful implementation of the transportation S&T strategy
will depend not only on the development of an appropriate set
of strategic partnership initiatives with wider constituency involvement,
but also on the definition and implementation of detailed goal,
task, and financial allocations, together with related schedules.
These actions are essential if budgetary impact-potentially one
of the most important benefits of strategy implementation-is to
be achieved. Unless the strategy emerges as a mechanism for influencing
federal R&D budgets, it cannot survive as a useful planning
tool.
2c. The linkages between the vision of a transportation
system in 2020 and the proposed R&D agenda should be strengthened,
and the role of R&D specific to individual modes should be
better articulated. The committee found the strategy
document to be deficient in articulating the linkages between
the vision of a "sustainable and seamless intermodal transportation
system" and the 12 strategic partnerships among government,
industry, academia, and others that constitute the proposed transportation
R&D agenda. Following discussion with members of the Transportation
S&T Strategy Team, the committee concluded that such linkages
had not been satisfactorily established during the planning process.
The evolutionary nature of many of the proposed developments
does not emerge clearly because of the inadequate linkages between
current research activities and the proposed R&D agenda, and
there is no clear distinction between problems requiring research
or technology development and those requiring implementation of
existing technologies. In the committee's view, establishing
clear linkages among the vision, current research activities,
and the strategic partnership initiatives would enhance the credibility
of the proposed R&D agenda as a means to achieve the desired
transportation goals. (See also Section 3.) The committee also
suggests that the strategy document include definitions of terms
such as "intermodal" and "multimodal" in an
effort to clarify its intent and encourage consistent usage.
The strategy addresses the need for investment in human capital
to support national transportation goals. The committee recognizes
the importance of such investment, but suggests that DOT consider
carefully its role in general transportation education in the
context of an initiative that focuses primarily on R&D. In
addition, the human resource issues implicit in the strategy should
be accorded more prominence. Changes in the transportation R&D
portfolio will result in requirements for personnel with different
technical and managerial skills from those traditionally needed
in the transportation sector, particularly within DOT. For example,
researchers and managers with expertise in information technologies
and systems engineering will be required to address R&D issues
relating to transportation information infrastructure.
The committee identified R&D specific to individual modes,
such as research in support of the regulatory missions of the
Federal Railroad Administration and the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, and highway materials and structures research
in the Federal Highway Administration, as an essential component
of any comprehensive transportation R&D agenda. Such modal
R&D is implicitly included in the strategy, but should be
more clearly identified as a component of the R&D portfolio
to avoid possible confusion, not only within DOT, but also at
OSTP and OMB.
As noted earlier, a detailed analysis of the R&D agenda was
beyond the scope of the committee's charge. Nonetheless, the
committee would like to offer some limited suggestions that would
strengthen the agenda and link it more clearly to the vision statement.
The following suggestions are based on individual committee members'
knowledge and experience of the transportation industry and are
by no means exhaustive.
Two general issues merit further consideration in developing
the R&D agenda. First, opportunities for R&D that promotes
the development of an intermodal transportation system should
be more clearly articulated. Second, R&D addressing environmental
issues should be better integrated into the partnership initiatives.
The committee also offers two more specific suggestions regarding
the content of the R&D agenda. The current focus of the research
agenda is on passengers rather than freight; pipeline transportation
is not addressed. The balance between moving goods and moving
people should be reevaluated. In addition, more emphasis should
be placed on monitoring and repair of the nation's aging infrastructure,
which is a core mission of DOT. Retrofit options that exploit
new technology as a means of extending the life of existing infrastructure
should also be given more prominence.
3. IMPLEMENTING THE STRATEGY
On the basis of information obtained from the panel discussions
with representatives of federal agencies and subsequent question
and answer sessions, the committee determined that the process
of developing the transportation S&T strategy has already
resulted in increased communication among federal research managers
and directors, particularly interagency communication. Benefits
have accrued in terms of sharing ideas and identifying areas of
common interest. In the case of agencies other than DOT, the
process has also highlighted transportation issues and requirements
for R&D. Within DOT, the extent of participation in the strategy
development process by different modal administrations has varied
widely. These varying degrees of involvement reflect, in part,
the perceptions of individual modal administrations of the relevance
of the strategy to their specific missions.
While recognizing the advantages of enhanced communication that
have already accrued, however, the committee considers that the
most important benefits of the transportation S&T strategy
will come from its implementation. A major component of the proposed
approach to strategy implementation is the establishment of the
12 strategic partnership initiatives discussed in Section 2c above.
The strategy document states that each of the partnerships meets
four criteria:
The committee did not review the partnerships in depth and did
not verify whether they meet the above criteria. Moreover, no
information was provided to the committee on relative priorities
among the 12 partnerships. Thus, although the committee agreed
that the concept of strategic partnership initiatives is
a major strength of the strategy, it made no attempt to determine
whether the 12 partnerships constitute a robust transportation
R&D portfolio consistent with the nation's needs. The successful
implementation of an appropriate set of strategic partnerships
will be critical in determining the overall success of the current
strategic planning effort.
The concept of interagency transportation-related partnerships
is not new. For example, the Ship Structure Committee, established
in 1946, is an interagency body that coordinates research on the
structural integrity of marine structures. However, such partnerships
have generally been driven by very specific needs and have neither
addressed wide-ranging transportation issues nor involved the
breadth of participation proposed in the current strategy. The
transportation S&T strategy suggests a variety of partners,
including federal agencies, the private sector (e.g., equipment
manufacturers, airlines, and transportation construction firms),
academia, the national laboratories, state and local government
agencies, and nongovernmental organizations.
In the committee's judgment, implementation of a set of strategic
partnership initiatives offers the potential to expand and diversify
the transportation research base by involving all the major stakeholders
at each stage in the process:
Implementation of the transportation S&T strategy would benefit
from increased recognition of the fact that most transportation
assets (infrastructure and vehicles) are owned and operated by
state, municipal, or private groups and individuals, not by the
federal government. The direct involvement of the diverse constituencies
of the decentralized transportation industry-in addition to Washington-based
federal agencies-would be particularly beneficial in identifying
relevant expertise and in garnering broad support for the strategy,
with a view to meeting the goals of a better, cleaner, cheaper,
and faster transportation system. Peer reviews of R&D activities
by technology users and other interested groups could be helpful
in this regard.
Although some technologies-such as differential global positioning
systems and integrated cargo tracking and information systems-might
serve all modes, the customers for transportation-related R&D
are diverse and vary in their degree of institutional readiness
to implement R&D outputs. In addition, the role of federal
R&D may vary not only for different transportation modes,
but also for different intermodal situations, depending on the
relative levels of public and private sector ownership, operational
involvement, and expertise.
Additional opportunities exist to emphasize the advantages of
coordinated research to those both within and outside the federal
government. For example, the provision of enhanced transportation
weather services would be helpful for state departments of transportation
in snow removal. Lessons learned about system architecture from
intelligent vehicle highway systems might be applied in collaborative
government/industry programs on advanced air traffic management,
providing guidance about the relative importance of cockpit automation
versus ground automation.
4. DEVELOPING A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR TRANSPORTATION R&D
WITHIN DOT
The committee sees the present effort to coordinate transportation
R&D across the federal government as providing a unique opportunity
for DOT itself to lead by example and to demonstrate the advantages
of an integrated transportation R&D strategic plan across
the department as a whole. However, the committee's discussions
with representatives of different modal administrations within
DOT and with DOT senior management revealed that, despite some
important collaborative initiatives in areas such as intelligent
transportation systems (ITS) infrastructure, intelligent vehicles,
and intermodal information systems, there is no integrated DOT-wide
R&D agenda. DOT could aptly be described as a "holding
company of modal administrations." In the committee's view,
this situation needs to change if the limited federal funds for
transportation R&D are to be used as cost-effectively as possible
in meeting the nation's future transportation requirements.
Given the potential advantages of coordination for more cost-effective
R&D, the committee considers it essential that DOT develop
its own integrated transportation R&D strategic plan, including
appropriate budget authority and DOT-wide management authority
and responsibility. Such a plan should support the NSTC Transportation
R&D Committee's vision of a future transportation system for
the nation. It should legitimize various categories of R&D,
from basic and applied research through technology development
and deployment, and should acknowledge the essential role of R&D
in developing and implementing regulations. The committee recognizes
that developing an integrated R&D strategic plan for DOT will
present challenges in reconciling diverse objectives and prioritizing
related R&D programs. Nonetheless priorities must be set
in the allocation of resources and it would be best for public
policy to make these choices and their rationale explicit.
The DOT R&D strategic plan should pay attention to the development
of an intermodal transportation system, but should not exclude
programs specific to individual modes (see 2c above). Given the
emphasis on intermodal requirements in the transportation S&T
strategy, and despite some increased recognition of intermodal
issues within DOT, the committee urges DOT to take a more proactive
approach in promoting the development of an intermodal transportation
system. All transportation modes are represented under the broad
umbrella of DOT, which is thus uniquely positioned within the
transportation community to demonstrate the advantages of thinking
and acting intermodally. The development of an intermodal R&D
agenda (and a related organizational structure with resource control)
within the context of a DOT-wide integrated transportation R&D
strategic plan would be an important step toward realizing the
"seamless intermodal transportation system" defined
in the vision statement of the NSTC Transportation R&D Committee.
In the committee's view, the R&D agenda for DOT as a whole
should comprise a portfolio of short-, medium-, and long-term
research programs with associated priorities. The establishment
of appropriate criteria would facilitate the definition and selection
of the most cost-effective R&D programs. A good DOT transportation
R&D agenda might include some of the features already discussed
in the broader context of the interagency transportation S&T
strategy, for example:
A suggested checklist for a good federal transportation research
agenda is provided in Attachment A1.
The committee recognizes that some organizational changes may
be needed within DOT to implement an integrated department-wide
R&D agenda of the type suggested. The committee is also aware
that previous proposals to reorganize DOT have not been adopted.