A Message from our President

Final Results of the 2003 International Contest on LTPP Data Analysis

Transportation & Development Institute Strategic Planning Meeting

T&DI to Co-sponsor 2004 Design Build in Transportation Conference

Governance

Reauthorization of TEA-21

2004 Jack E. Leisch Memorial National Graduate Fellowship

Publications

International News


8th International
Conference on
Application of Advanced
Technologies in
Transport Engineering
May 26-28, 2004
Beijing. China

28th International Air
Transport Conference
Reinventing Airports for
the Challenges Ahead
July 25-28, 2004
Washington, DC

10th Automated People
Movers 2005
May 1-5, 200
Orlando, Florida
 President
 Kumares C. Sinha
 Purdue University
 Sinha@ecn.purdue.edu

 Vice President
 Robert D. Stevens
 Arcadis
 rstevens@arcadis-us.com

 Treasurer
 Eva Lerner-Lam
 The Palisades
 Group, Inc.
 elernerlam@palisa desgroup.com

 Past-President
 Robert R. Costigan
 Rcostigan8776@wo way.com

 Larry Mugler
 Denver Regional
 Council of Governments
 lmugler@drcog.org

 A. Essam Radwan
 University of
 Central Florida
 aeradwan@mail.ucf.edu

 C. Michael Walton
 University of
 Texas at Austin
 cmwalton@mail.ut exas.edu

 Secretary
 Jonathan C. Esslinger
 Transportation &
 Development Institute
 jesslinger@asce.org
March 24, 2004

A Message from our President

We are pleased to present this inaugural newsletter. Its purpose is to keep our membership abreast of our current activities and concerns related to technical and professional needs of our membership.

At this time, I would like to highlight a few activities that the Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI) of ASCE has embarked on:

T&DI held its first strategic planning workshop in February where the committee and council chairs came together to sharpen their common visions and objectives. We all feel renewed energy to undertake actions that will help us to better serve our members. I invite you to visit our web page at www.tanddi.org for more information.

We have initiated an innovative way to present timely and specialized technical information to our members. We have been organizing webinars where seminars are held through the Internet. These webinars can be used not only to learn about the latest information on some hot topics, but also to earn CEUs. Visit our web site for information on upcoming webinars.

As you may be aware, the institute's top leadership is elected by members. Election for the new Board member is to be held in May and June, 2004. Nominations of candidates are being considered by our Nominating Committee.

Another important event is the restructuring of the ASCE governance. A new structure will make the ASCE Board of Direction more clearly connected to its members and allow diverse representation of institutes' interests. See the item on Governance in this issue for more details.

T&DI is run by volunteers and I invite all of our members to participate in institute activities. Please let us know your suggestions, concerns, and complaints. As they are our future, I particularly want our younger members to get involved in institute activities. It is a wonderful way to network and take part in our profession. I urge all to contact the Institute staff Jon Esslinger (jesslinger@asce.org or Andrea Baker abaker@asce.org ) or me at ksinha@purdue.edu.

Our aspiration is to make the institute not only an organization to further the interests of our members, but also to make it a "go to" organization for issues related to transportation and development.

Kumares C. Sinha
West Lafayette, IN

Kumares C. Sinha, T&DI President for 2003-2004, is Olson Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. He has been an ASCE member for about four decades and he is a Registered Professional Engineer in Indiana. He is active in the leadership of several professional organizations and he consults for the World Bank on transportation and infrastructure issues.

Final Results of the 2003 International Contest on LTPP Data Analysis

Universities and State DOT's were invited to participate in the 2003 International Contest on LTPP Data Analysis, co-sponsored by T&DI and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The contest, now in its fourth year received 20 papers. The contest is designed to encourage students, professors, from around the world and State DOT's to get involved in using the LTPP database. The contest creates an opportunity to use this significant database for research, class projects, Master's and Doctoral theses, and practical fieldwork to resolve common engineering problems. This year ASCE/LTPP received papers in all categories.

Winners received their awards on January 11, 2004 during the LTPP State Coordinators meeting. Winners are from right to left, Ricardo Oliveira de Souza, Venkatesa Prasanna Kumar Ganesan, Susan Tighe and James Smith. Presenting the awards were, far left, Paul Teng, Director, Office of Infrastructure Research and Development of the Federal Highway Administration and Kumares Sinha, second from left, President of the Transportation & Development Institute. Winners who were unable to be present at the award ceremony included: Mark McDonald and Silvrano Dantas Neto.

Contest Categories and Prizes

The following describes the four award categories:

Category 1, Undergraduate Students (Individual or team entry), consisting of teams of up to three undergraduate students. The analysis is restricted to using data available on the DataPave CD-ROMs. The principal author is an undergraduate student who primarily conducted the analysis.

Category 2, Graduate Students (Individual or team entry), consisting of teams of up to three students, including undergraduate students. The principal author is the graduate student who primarily conducted the analysis.

Category 3, Partnership, consisting of undergraduate or graduate students working in partnership with a state highway agency and/or private organization/industry. The teams consist of up to three students, not including partners. The principal author is the student who primarily conducted the analysis.

Category 4, Curriculum, a category designed to encourage college/university professors to develop an appropriate curriculum using the LTPP database.

This Year's Winners
UNDERGRADUATE CATEGORY:
1st Place Mark P. McDonald, Faculty Advisors Larry G. Crowley and Rod E. Turochy
GRADUATE CATEGORY:
1st Place James T. Smith, Faculty Advisor Susan L. Tighe
2nd Place Ricardo Oliviera de Souza and Silvrano Dantas Neto, Faculty Advisor Márcio Muniz de Farias
PARTNERSHIP CATEGORY:
1st Place Venkatesa Prasanna Kumar Ganesan, Co–Authors, Shelley M. Stoffels, Janice Arellano and Dennis Morian
CURRICULUM CATEGORY:
1st Place Susan L. Tighe

More information on the contest can be found in the article "Digging into LTPP Pavement Data," by Antonio Nieves Torres and John J. Sullivan IV, which was published in the FHWA magazine Public Roads, Volume 66 No. 3. an online copy of the article is posted at: http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/02nov/06.htm

Transportation & Development Institute Strategic Planning Meeting

T&DI held a Strategic Planning Workshop February 6-7, 2004 in San Diego. The Board of Governors, Council Chairs and Committee Chairs were present for this workshop. Larry Roth, Deputy Executive Director for ASCE served as the facilitator. Staff participating included: Jon Esslinger, Director of T&DI, Andrea Baker, Administrator for T&DI and John Durrant, Managing Director, Engineering Programs. The purpose of the workshop was to gather the institute's senior volunteers and staff leadership to map a course of strategic objectives and initiatives to accomplish over the next three to five years. The attendees discussed what T&DI's Core Values are and used those values to review and refine T&DI's Vision and Mission statements. Later in the workshop the group created a series of Objectives for the institute to achieve. Finally the group developed strategic initiatives for each objective. The hope is that when the draft strategic plan is circulated to the committees and councils those groups will create additional initiatives to support the objectives. The Governors are scheduled to consider adoption of the Strategic Plan at their June 2004 meeting.

Eva Lerner-Lam strategizing with her group
Strategic Planning Workshop participants

2004 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting

Twenty of T&DI's committees and councils met during TRB's recent annual meeting held in Washington, D.C. During the meetings, the committees and councils reviewed the status of their current projects and planned for new products and services in 2004-2005 for T&DI's members and others in the profession. At the conclusion of the committee meetings T&DI's Board of Governors hosted a reception which proved the perfect forum for "meeting and greeting".

T&DI to Co-sponsor 2004 Design Build in Transportation Conference

T&DI along with Design Build Institute of America (DBIA), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and the Maryland State Highway Administration are Co-Sponsoring the 2004 Design-Build in Transportation Conference April 21-23 in Baltimore, MD, at the Marriott Inner Harbor Hotel.

The theme of this year's conference is, "Creating Success through Design-Build - Integrating People & Process". It is an opportunity for leaders to converge and explore the hallmarks of integrated project delivery, discover the possibilities, share the realities and learn new integrated strategies for highways, transit and airports. The purpose of the conference is to provide quality educational and networking opportunities for the transportation community. The two and one-half day conference format provides for a self-directed, facilitated learning environment with interactive forums. Educational sessions will focus on current issues, best practices and challenges facing professionals in the transportation design-build industry.

As an "owners-driven conference" for owners, practitioners and consultants, this conference will explore the practical "how to" side of design-build from the viewpoint of the owner and is targeted to the designer, builder and user. Given pressures to stretch limited funds even further and to complete complex projects even sooner, this is a most timely educational and networking event.

This year's Program Co-Chairs are Louis Robbins and Paul Huston, both ASCE members. Matt McDole, T&DI's Construction Committee Chair, represents ASCE on the Program Committee.

Look for detailed information in the conference brochure soon to be mailed. Also, for further information, contact DBIA, the principal sponsor at 202.682.0110 or visit www.dbia.org.

Governance

Vote Yes on Constitutional Amendment To Give Institutes Direct, Voting Representation on the ASCE Board of Direction

Members of the Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI) are urged to vote yes to adopt the amendment to the ASCE constitution that will give institutes voting representation on the society's Board of Direction, something the institutes have not had since their inception.

After over four years of study, the ASCE Board of Direction in mid-November voted to accept the proposed constitutional amendment and send it to the society's membership for their approval. The Society membership will vote on the amendment this summer. The ballot will be in the June issue of ASCE News and must be returned by August 13, 2004. This is a very important issue for T&DI members so please return your ballot and vote yes.

The ASCE Board of Direction realized the current governance model is not supporting some of its goals, including:
  • Bringing a diversity of perspectives to the board so that the concerns and interests of all ASCE members (including Institutes) are addressed and the views of the leaders in the fields of business and technology are reflected,
  • Developing a structure that makes it more attractive for members to serve,
  • Encouraging innovative approaches to problem solving, and
  • Attracting industry leaders to the Society's leadership.

In the constitutional amendment, the seven Institutes (including T&DI) will be in a Technical Region and have two Society Directors directly elected by the membership of all the Institutes. These Society Directors will have voting rights on the Board of Direction and will serve three year terms.

Numerous ASCE membership polls have shown that most members joined the Society for technical reasons, such as to stay up on technical innovations. The Institutes were established to provide technical leadership to civil engineers and other stakeholders interested in specialty areas, such as transportation and land development.

The current governance model allows Society Board of Directors to come only from the geographic districts and zones. Many extremely qualified Society members move because of job requirements and are not able to attain senior leadership positions in the Society because of the very long and involved processes within the sections, districts, and zones for leadership nomination and selection. This deprives the Society of highly qualified and motivated leaders just because they are mobile workers. However, many remain very active in the technical aspects of the Society, such as Technical Committee leaders within the Institutes. Now these people have a direct path to be a Society Director and contribute their skills and leadership for the betterment of all of ASCE.

In addition, the proposed constitutional amendment will allow the Institutes to directly nominate a candidate for President-elect of the Society through the newly established Technical Region Board of Governors. Thus the Institutes will have a way to nominate for consideration as President-elect, a seasoned Institute leader - something members of the Institutes have wanted for many years.

For all of these reasons, please vote YES this summer for the ASCE constitutional amendment that will provide direct voting representation for the Institutes on the Board of Direction.

Reauthorization of TEA-21

In Senator Johnson's office, from left to right - Mr. Ken Skorseth, Senator Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) and Dr. Ali Selim. Dr. Selim and Mr. Skorseth are from South Dakota State University

In response to the recent efforts by several professional organizations like ASCE, NSPE, etc. encouraging their constituencies to contact their legislators, the Chair of the Highway Pavement Committee met with one of the U. S. Senators from his state while attending the annual meeting of TRB. During the meeting, Ali Selim, Ph.D., P.E. F.ASCE, professor of Civil Engineering and the Director of the SD LTAP at South Dakota State University, explained to Senator Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota) the impact of the reauthorization of TEA-21 on the transportation community at large and on the local community, across the nation, in particular.

The meeting took place three weeks before the Senate was to vote on the reauthorization of TEA-21. On February 15, 2004 the new bill passed the Senate allowing $318 Billion to be spent on our transportation infrastructure. The House version is yet to be passed. President Bush signed an extension of TEA-21, now set to expire April 30, 2004.

2004 Jack E. Leisch Memorial National Graduate Fellowship

Any full-time student who is enrolled in or admitted to a transportation/traffic engineering degree program (master or doctoral) in Civil Engineering at a qualified university is encouraged to apply for the 2004 Jack E. Leisch Scholarship.

The amount of the award is expected to be up to $2,500 depending on funds available from the endowment. The deadline for this award is May 14, 2004.

Please visit ASCE's website at www.asce.org/inside/stud_leisch.cfm for details regarding eligibility requirements, application packet and procedures.

Publications

Managing and Leading: 52 Lessons Learned for Engineers offers useful ideas on how engineers can more effectively approach the non-technical or "soft-side" aspects of working with colleagues, clients, customers, the public and other stakeholders. Presented are 52 essays, each offering an idea or principle for engineers to improve their managing and leading skills.

Learn more about this essential publication at: www.pubs.asce.org/BOOKdisplay.cgi?9991759

Airfield Pavements: Challenges and New Technologies is the recently released proceedings from T&DI's 2003 Airfield Pavement Conference. The book contains a wide variety of papers on various aspects of airfield pavement construction, reconstruction, repair, and management.

Go to www.pubs.asce.org to purchase a copy of this book.

International News
National Engineers Week Goes International

Recognizing the globalization of professional engineering, National Engineers Week celebrated the international engineering community with two key programs in 2004. New Faces in Engineering, developed in 2003 to showcase rising young stars in America's engineering profession, has expanded to include engineers from around the world. The second major program for 2004, connecting the World to Engineering, establishes a global dialogue with a new Web-based communication and discussion vehicle for engineering student, young professionals and business leaders, targeted at engineering undergraduates to stoke and maintain interest in their chosen careers.

Learn about Eweek's new global focus at: www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/2004_bigworld.shtml



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