Although many State DOT federal transit grant application and management functions are automated with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) on-line grant making tools, Transportation Electronic Award and Management (TEAM), and Electronic Clearing House Operation System (ECHO) for disbursements, there are still many grant management processes undertaken by state DOTs that are not interfaced with these automated systems or are off-line paper processes. This is especially true for federally funded sub-recipients grants issued by State DOT’s as well as state funded transit grant programs that are administered outside of the FTA’s TEAM structure.

State DOT’s employ word processing documents as well as off-line spreadsheets and other databases to support the input requirements for TEAM and ECHO and for FTA reporting requirements not captured in TEAM. The lack of a direct interface of this information into TEAM and ECHO, as well as other reporting requirements creates much duplication of effort by state DOT transit program personnel.

This research will describe current best practices by State DOT’s in the automation of transit grant management activities as well as identify common grant management tasks, activities and reports that are need-based candidates for future automation.

Status: The revised final report was received in October 2013.  The research will be published in the NCHRP Research Results Digest series.