IDOT/ ICT Sign New Funding Agreement

The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) plans to invest more than $15 million over the next three years to continue the innovative transportation research conducted by the Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This new agreement comes as ICT continues to conduct groundbreaking transportation research in a variety of focus areas.

The new Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) between IDOT and ICT, effective July 1, 2008, provides a 70 percent funding increase over the first three-year agreement between the parties that created ICT in the summer of 2005.

As outlined in the agreement, ICT will continue to develop effective technologies that improve safety and reliability, reduce congestion, improve utilization of the state's infrastructure, and optimize the limited resources of IDOT. ICT will also provide support for the administration, development, and management of technical studies, research projects, and technology transfer programs for IDOT.

Since its 2005 inception, ICT has grown to become one of the leading transportation centers in the nation. To date, the center has completed 20 research projects with another 62 projects ongoing. This includes 17 projects totaling $3.5 million set to start in 2008 as part of the new agreement. ICT's varied research includes developing better designs for pavements that use recycled materials, improving work zone safety, implementing technologies to improve bridge safety and monitoring, and utilizing alternative energy sources such as wind.

Although headquartered at the Urbana-Champaign campus, ICT funds transportation research on all three UI campuses. The center also outsources funds and research projects to private researchers and other universities. ICT recently advertised requests for proposals (RFPs) on its website, www.ict.uiuc.edu, for seven research projects totaling $1.33 million. These proposals were due July 18, 2008, and are currently being reviewed by Technical Review Panels that will recommend Principal Investigators for these projects in August 2008.

ICT Director Imad L. Al-Qadi, UIUC Founder Professor of Engineering, says, "We appreciate the confidence shown by IDOT and will continue the research advancement in transportation. Through much hard work and support from many, the ICT research of the past three years has been responsible for supporting more than 55 of our young, talented graduate students, and this number is rising every year. In addition, it has supported the research of almost 40 researchers, both at UIUC and other schools. The assistance from many universities and private sector partners has contributed to the past success of the ICT and is tremendously appreciated. Through groundbreaking research, we will maintain our status as a leading national and international transportation center and look forward to continuing to serve the state of Illinois and the nation."

The center has also been actively working with alternative energy research. "Especially at this time of high oil prices and heightened environmental awareness, ICT is proactively working to provide solutions for sustainable transportation systems, renewal energy, green engineering, and safe, durable, and less congested transportation systems," Al-Qadi adds.

David Lippert, Bureau Chief of Materials and Physical Research at the Illinois Department of Transportation, says, "The continuation of the Illinois Center for Transportation provides IDOT with access to leading researchers throughout the state to help us solve technical problems which range from improving highway performance to investigation of alternative energy for our rest areas. Though not a substitute for a much needed capital program, the research effort will help us stretch our dollars and work smarter. We are thankful for support from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) which provides transportation research funds and the University providing the required matching funds to make this effort possible."

ICT is located at the Advanced Transportation Research and Engineering Laboratory (ATREL), one of the top transportation research facilities in the nation, on 47 acres of the former Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois. The facility has 60,000 square feet of laboratories and three major buildings for transportation research. The large land area at the ATREL complex houses a full-scale pavement testing facility that uses an Accelerated Transportation Loading ASsembly (ATLAS), which is capable of evaluating multiple transportation support systems under real environmental and vehicular loading conditions. Visit the ICT website regularly for more information about the ICT's research activities.