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The technology applications mission of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is to ensure the timely identification and assessment of innovative research results, technology, and products and the application of those that are determined to be of potential benefit to the highway community.

The technology applications program involves all areas of highway technology, including asphalt and concrete pavements, environment, structures, geotechnology, hydraulics, safety, motor carriers, and traffic operations and management. Included in the program also over the last six years were activities related to the implementation of the products from the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP). An additional part of the program is the FHWA administration of the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP).

Linked to the buttons above are a series of descriptions of projects that are part of the Technology Applications Program. The program, for the most part, categorizes activities under four types of projects: demonstration, application, test and evaluation, and special. Technical activities are assigned to one of the categories depending on the stage of the technology, and, after development, what technology transfer or marketing approach would be most useful in reaching the intended user.

• Demonstration Projects (DP) - Efforts to promote nationwide a proven material, process, method, equipment item, or other feature that FHWA has targeted for adoption by the highway community.

• Application Projects (AP) - Individual efforts to assess, refine, or disseminate an emerging technology. Such efforts may include contracts, regional or national seminars or workshops, specifications, notebooks or pamphlets, instructional/ how-to guides, open houses, and focused clearinghouses that are not part of demonstration or test and evaluation projects.

• Test and Evaluation Projects (TE) - Efforts to evaluate innovative or emerging technologies that have been identified as having a great potential for use nationwide.

• Special Projects (SP) - Evaluation efforts of industry and the FHWA in conjunction with interested States to evaluate a material, process, method, or other feature. An effort begins with a technology sharing meeting, progresses through a work plan and several control experiments (or operational tests) to a closeout evaluation. These special projects can lead to a demonstration, test and evaluation, or a combination of the two types of projects.

The FHWA effort includes staffs in the Office of Technology Applications (OTA), the program offices, and the field offices. In many cases, FHWA program office staff manage these projects in their areas of specialization. OTA is the central office for administering the technology applications program.

Each project write-up on the linked pages includes its project number, its title, description and status section, and the name, organization code, and telephone number for the project manager and, where appropriate, for a project coordinator. The description section includes information about the reasons for initiating the project and the background and processes related to the individual project. The status section includes a discussion of the current and some past activities of the project. We continue to work to add other links, such as to project products, publications, related sites, etc.

The LTAP is administered separately from these projects, with delivery of technology and products accomplished for the most part through the 57 Technology Transfer Centers. The program's activities are discussed in other publications, including a resource catalog developed for FHWA by the LTAP National Technology Transfer Clearinghouse. Further information on LTAP can be reviewed at http://www.ltapt2.org/ .

In a similar vein, the joint State- and FHWA field office-directed experimental projects program is available periodically in publications based on records accumulated electronically in the National Experimental Projects Tabulation. Work is underway to put these records online.