Southeastern Transportation Center

	Technology Transfer

In support of our mission, the STC sponsors a variety of technology transfer activities relating to our theme -- transportation safety. We have published dozens of research reports and sponsored several major conferences and seminars of regional and national importance. Through our newsletters, press releases and research highlights, we continually disseminate the latest information and technology relating to transportation safety to practitioners throughout the region and nation.

The major system for the dissemination of transportation research and education in Region IV is the network of Local Technology Assistance Programs (LTAP) or Technology Transfer (T2) Centers. These centers are designated by FHWA through State DOTs. They receive Federal technical information, maintain technical libraries, and promote new technologies among the local and state governments.

The designated LTAP Centers in the eight Region IV states are:

As may be noted, four of the eight LTAP centers (marked by asterisk) are housed in consortium universities. These four network with the other four LTAP Centers to form a cohesive, responsive, and effective mechanism for communicating research findings and education opportunities in Region IV. Recent profiles for the four LTAP Centers which are a part of the consortium indicate that these four LTAP centers, in 1993, conducted 211 transportation courses, maintained a mailing list for newsletters, etc. of 17,056 individuals and organizations, and distributed 15, 875 publications and 1,004 video tapes. The other four Region IV LTAP Centers performed a similar service and are certainly available for the dissemination of research findings in their states.

The University of Tennessee has a Training Division within the Transportation Center. This Division is responsible for developing courses which meet the ongoing training needs of state and local governments, as well as training on "cutting edge" technologies. Each of the consortium universities also have training mechanisms.

The University of Tennessee, as well as all of the members of the consortium, is active in the dissemination of its research results. All funding agencies and sponsors require that researchers consider implementation of the research findings as part of their research effort. This has historically been accomplished through handbooks, targeted training, and other methods to put transportation research findings into practice. The University of Tennessee will continue to utilize these processes to disseminate research and education findings from UTC sponsored studies.

The University of Tennessee and Consortium Universities have experience with national and regional conferences in this area. The STC actively supported, and in some cases sponsored, regional and national transportation topics. Example include: 1) The Southeastern Regional Conference on Traffic Engineering, July 28-30, 1992, Charlotte, NC - a forum for transportation professionals to address the impacts of high growth, new technology and competing resources on the profession, 2) Innovative Financing for Transportation Facilities, December 14, 1994, ITS America Headquarters, Washington, DC - a forum to develop dialogue between the users and suppliers of APTS technologies concerning current products, user needs and future directions.

The Consortium is also definitely multimodal in its training activities. As an example the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida is very active in continuing education for transportation professionals and policy makers. This involves technical support responding to specific issues, providing reference materials producing several newsletters for the transportation industry and several more formal continuing education activities such as:

• Transportation Demand Management training throughout the state and nation, and training opportunities from seminars to multi-day workshops. The training has been supported by a variety of federal, state, and local funding sources.
• Training in the areas of transit maintenance. They manage a FDOT sponsored program providing specialized training to transit and paratransit operators in selected maintenance related topic areas.
• A variety of training for paratransit operators including subjects as diverse as strategic planning, financial planning and data collection.
• A clearinghouse for alternative fuels information.
• A series of workshops to local governments on access management.
• A series of short courses on public involvement in access management is currently being scheduled.
• Training for transportation professionals in dealing with disabled clients.

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For more info contact the Technology Transfer Coordinator: Zach Zacharia.