AASHTO Journal, 14 August 2015
The Federal Highway Administration and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials said the second Strategic Highway Research Program has awarded more than $6.4 million in new implementation assistance funding to 34 new transportation projects using innovative products based on SHRP2 research.
The awards are under Round 6 of the SHRP2 Implementation Assistance Program, which provides the financial incentives to state departments of transportation and other agencies to utilize SHRP2’s research products that, among other things, can improve efficiency, reduce traffic disruptions during construction or enhance safety.
A Transportation TV video below further explains the IAP program to help states deploy SHRP2 products.
Round 6 awarded financial incentives to agencies in 18 states and the District of Columbia to use six SHRP2 products.
Two of those products focus on pavement innovations, two involve utilities, one is software to analyze the construction effect of multiple concurrent work zones. The final one is called “PlanWorks,” which SHRP2 describes as a “systematic web-based resource that supports collaborative decision-making to deliver projects that meet environmental, community and mobility needs.”
The value of the individual Round 6 awards ranged from $75,000 user incentives for a precast concrete pavement product to $300,000 for lead adopters of certain products. In all, Round 6 allocated $6.44 million to 20 agencies.
In March, the FHWA and AASHTO said SHRP2 had issued $5.85 million in Round 5 awards. The six rounds of the program so far have aided more than 300 SHRP2 projects in all 50 states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico.
SHRP2 will take applications next April for a final round of IAP awards to be issued, and expects to include a dozen of its products. Ahead of the application period it will announce a series of webinars to go over the products for which it will offer the financial assistance.