Engaging New Partners in Transportation Research

Abstract

Over the past several decades a variety of federal and state programs have invested in transportation research. The U.S. Department of Transportation annually invests approximately $180 million in State Planning and Research (SPR) and university transportation centers (UTCs). This investment generates an extensive portfolio of gray literature (i.e., patents, governmental or scientific research group technical reports, white papers, or preprints) that is not yet uniformly cataloged or accessible, despite the best efforts of the National Technical Information Service, TRB, and the National Transportation Library. This paper reports on a review of the publishing and archiving practices for transportation research technical reports, summarizes best practices, and recommends that UTC and SPR research programs seek and strengthen partnerships with libraries to facilitate the improved production, stewardship, and dissemination of research reports. This paper describes an open access program in Indiana that has digitally archived approximately 1,500 SPR reports dating from 1956, implemented consistent name authority, and created digital object identifiers for reports and data sets to systematically integrate technical reports into scholarly literature. Through new partnerships between the researchers and the home institution, researchers have developed processes to leverage technical report production with the university press to ensure an agile adaptation to emerging digital publishing and open access trends. The adoption of the techniques and the partnerships described in this paper are believed to result in a more efficient investment of state and national transportation research funds by reducing research duplication and demonstrating an improved stewardship of research dollars.