Author Description

Technology is at the core of the surface transportation system and is embodied in existing and new scientific knowledge and infrastructure, hardware, and software processes. It is designed to improve performance and cost-effectiveness of infrastructure and the vehicles, systems, and services that utilize the infrastructure. In recent years, a series of rapid advances in key technology areas such as sensors, communications, artificial intelligence, energy storage, nanomaterials, and robotics have combined to provide the potential to improve the performance and safety of the transportation system as well as the agencies' organizational capabilities to manage performance. Firms are remixing decades-old "core" technologies of the Internet, mobile and cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), robotics, and additive manufacturing (3D printing) with new business models to create new forms of work and mobility. NCHRP Web-Only Document 371: Impact of New Disruptive Technologies on the Performance of DOTs, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, is supplemental to NCHRP Research Report 1075: Becoming a Tech-Savvy DOT of Tomorrow and develops a guide for state DOTs and other transportation planning agencies to understand, predict, plan for, and adapt to the potential impacts of emerging disruptive technologies.