BACKGROUND

NCHRP Project 20-83(03)A, “Long-Range Strategic Issues Affecting Preservation, Maintenance, and Renewal of Highway Infrastructure,” focused on issues affecting preservation, maintenance, and renewal (PMR) of highway infrastructure. The project emphasized preparing for plausible futures rather than predicting various future scenarios and developed a pathway to guide transportation agencies to advance the implementation of emerging PMR practices through awareness, advocacy, assessment, adoption, and action planning. The project final report, published as NCHRP Report 750, Volume 7: Strategic Issues Facing Transportation: Preservation, Maintenance, and Renewal of Highway Infrastructure, contains two guides, one for practitioners and another for leadership, to help with the understanding, identification, application, and implementation of emerging PMR practices. The report is supplemented with appendices, published as NCHRP Web-Only Document 272: Existing and Emerging Highway Infrastructure Preservation, Maintenance, and Renewal Definitions, Practices, and Scenarios.

The report identifies 16 emerging practices and technologies that have the potential to enhance significantly the capabilities of state departments of transportation (DOTs) to preserve, maintain, and renew highway infrastructure. The report also includes guidelines for agency leaders and subject matter experts (SMEs) on steps to prepare for the implementation of the practices and technologies highlighted in the report.

Therefore, there is a need to facilitate deployment of the research findings and ensure state DOTs familiarity with the research recommendations to prepare for the future and enhance system PMR in response to anticipated challenges.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this project are to develop and hold a series of workshops for state DOT leaders, managers, and SMEs to share information on emerging PMR practices and technologies and their impacts on agency PMR efforts, and promote action planning to adopt these practices and technologies.