The Western Transportation Institute (WTI) is a nationally recognized center in rural transportation research and education located in the College of Engineering at Montana State University

Montana State University - Bozeman

Montana State University – Bozeman is a public university located in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's land-grant university and primary campus in the Montana State University System, which is part of the Montana University System...

 in Bozeman, MT. The WTI was founded in 1994 as a cooperative effort between Montana State University, the Montana Department of Transportation

Montana Department of Transportation

The Montana Department of Transportation is a governmental agency in the U.S. state of Montana, responsible for numerous programs related to the construction, maintenance, and monitoring of Montana's transportation infrastructure and operations...

, and the California Department of Transportation

California Department of Transportation

The California Department of Transportation is a government department in the U.S. state of California. Its mission is to improve mobility across the state. It manages the state highway system and is actively involved with public transportation systems throughout the state...

, and has since been devoted to the improvement of transportation and travel in rural America.

The WTI has been affiliated with the engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 department at Montana State University since its inception, and the Institute has professional and student offices on the university's campus. Montana State University also leases the office space that house the WTI's primary off-campus facilities, which include meeting spaces, as well as state-of-the-art laboratories.

Affiliation with U.S. Department of Transportation

The Western Transportation Institute was established as a national University Transportation Center (UTC) by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1998, and was formally reauthorized as a UTC in 2005. As a UTC, the WTI is recognized as a federal transportation center whose specific focus area is mobility in rural transportation and travel. The significance of the federal designation is summarized in the UTC's mission statement, which states that the program's objective is "to advance U.S. technology and expertise in the many disciplines comprising transportation through the mechanism of education, research, and technology transfer at university-based centers of excellence."

Due to UTC designation, the WTI receives federal funding and its annual budget is more than $5 million.

Areas of research

The WTI does extensive research into eight primary areas related to rural travel and transportation.

• #Safety and Operations
• #Winter Maintenance and Effects
• #Road Ecology
• #Infrastructure Maintenance and Materials
• #Systems Engineering Development and Integration
• #Mobility and Public Transportation
• #Logistics and Freight Management
• #Transportation Planning and Economics

Safety and Operations

The mission of the Safety and Operations program is to be at the forefront of the National momentum to address safety and operational challenges in rural America. Our goal is to develop sustainable solutions to improve safety and operations through innovation and research in several areas, including:

• Human factors as related to driver performance, highway design, information system, special users, education and training;
• ITS planning, demonstration, deployment, and evaluation;
• Traffic safety improvement through engineering, education, enforcement and EMS.
• Development of tools to better monitor and assess traffic operations on rural highways
• Traffic control and safety during nonrecurring events (e.g., extreme weather conditions, work zones, traffic-related incidents, special events, natural disasters); and
• Supporting multi-agency transportation system management and coordination efforts;
• The program consists of emphasis areas in safety, operations and human factors.

Safety and Operations

Winter Maintenance and Effects

The WTI Winter Maintenance and Effects (WME) Program aims to research and mitigate winter and corrosion effects on transportation systems through innovation and multi-disciplinary partnerships. To this end, we serve as a bridge between industry and academia and conduct problem-driven research, with emphases on the development and evaluation of materials, technologies and systems to support winter maintenance best practices and decision making for sustainable transportation systems.

Winter Maintenance and Effects

Road Ecology

The Road Ecology Program seeks to provide national leadership in understanding the interaction between roads, natural resources, and the environment. We strive to develop and implement solutions through research, education, outreach, and communications.

To succeed, our program works to ensure:

• State-of-the-art science is applied in the development and restoration of surface transportation systems across the nation;
• Transportation policies are developed and programmatically applied to protect the environment;
• Road ecology is an established multidisciplinary academic field at Montana State University and other higher education institutions;
• Environmentally sound transportation systems are recognized by society as an important component of America’s quality of life.

DEFINITION: Road ecology is the study of the complex interaction between roads and the environment over scales of space and time.

Road Ecology

Infrastructure Maintenance and Materials

The Infrastructure Maintenance and Materials program area at WTI aims to use progressive research to improve the design and maintenance of rural highway infrastructure.

The nation’s aging transportation infrastructure has received a poor rating in recent reports due to increasing demands and limited resources for maintenance and expansion. These problems tend to be more acute in rural areas, where the highway or bridge system is the principal (and sometimes only) means of maintaining mobility between remote locations. Rural transportation agencies need new and innovative solutions to increase the longevity of existing and new infrastructure, and to ensure that new designs are adequate to meet increasing demands.

WTI conducts basic and applied research to address the immediate and long-term construction and maintenance needs of rural highway departments in the following areas:

• Materials – Conduct research using new materials, such as geosynthetics
  Geosynthetics
  Geosynthetics is the term used to describe a range of generally polymeric products used to solve civil engineering problems. The term is generally regarded to encompass eight main product categories: geotextiles, geogrids, geonets, geomembranes, geosynthetic clay liners, geofoam, geocells and...
  
  or high performance concrete, to evaluate their benefit in new and rehabilitated highway structures.
• Maintenance – Develop best management practices using cost-benefit analyses to help state highway departments select the most appropriate and cost-effective maintenance methods to extend the life of their facilities.
• Monitoring – Test and evaluate instrumentation and remote sensing technologies to better monitor the condition of transportation infrastructure.

Infrastructure Maintenance and Materials

Systems Engineering Development and Integration

Researching and applying best practices to analyze, engineer, develop and integrate hardware, software and communication systems as applied to transportation. Our team strives to do the following.

• Develop/Integrate: Develop usable information technology and communication systems to meet end user needs.
• Demonstrate: Demonstrate systems engineering processes that leverage best practices to maximize limited resources.
• Analyze/Evaluate: Analyze and evaluate systems and alternatives to recognize capabilities and limitations and to maximize utility.
• Train/Educate: Raise awareness of systems engineering via work force development and education at all levels.

Systems Engineering Development and Integration

Mobility and Public Transportation

The Mobility and Public Transportation program research area works at providing a comprehensive approach to solving issues facing rural transportation (transit), federal lands (national parks, forests, etc.) and tribal agencies through research, outreach and education/training. It does this through facilitating transportation coordination among transportation providers, including human service, tourist industries and other organizations, and increasing mobility for individuals of all ages and abilities by using innovative solutions that include bicycle, pedestrian and all other modes of transportation.

Mobility and Public Transportation

Logistics and Freight Management

Logistics and Freight Management research area utilizes a comprehensive approach to solving issues related to timely and cost-effective management of freight, inventory and related transportation assets.

Logistics and Freight Management

Transportation Planning and Economics

The Transportation Planning and Economics research group works to assist implementers and policy makers in the creation of more sustainable transportation systems serving rural communities by researching the impact and interrelationships between transportation, land use, planning and policy, and our economy.

Transportation Planning and Economics

External links

• Research and Innovative Technology Association (http://www.rita.dot.gov/publications/research_activities_of_the_department_of_transportation_a_report_to_congress/html/box_03_01.html

• United States Department of Transportation (http://utc.dot.gov/index.html)