Alliance for Iowa State

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Iowa drivers may take the state's safe, high-quality roads for granted, but not researchers at Iowa State University's Center for Transportation Research and Education (CTRE).

CTRE faculty, staff and students create new knowledge and practical tools for transportation professionals in the areas of safety, traffic operations, infrastructure management, and sustainability.

Innovation

CTRE's innovative research stretches from safer and more efficient travel through work zones to improved methods to analyze crash and traffic data. Researchers are embracing high-performance computing to manage big data sets of real-time traffic information. The work supports visual road monitoring leading to optimal decision making to keep vehicles moving safely throughout Iowa.

Researchers create electronic management tools to improve and prolong the lives of infrastructure assets like bridges, signs, and pavement markings for the Iowa Department of Transportation and Iowa's counties, towns, and cities. CTRE studies also have examined road departure crashes (when vehicles cross the center or edge line), which account for two-thirds of all fatal crashes in Iowa. Suggested countermeasures included improved signage and other curve warning treatments.

Cost effectiveness

CTRE also impacts the state through its Iowa Pavement Management Program. The program provides a database of past and projected pavement conditions to assist the state's transportation professionals to make the best possible decisions on highway maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.

"Our team is working diligently to break new technological ground by blending new technologies, high-performance computing, and aggressive collaboration with public and private partners," said Neal Hawkins, CTRE director. "All of this is focused on igniting meaningful innovation in the areas of transportation mobility, safety, and economic vitality for Iowa."

Did you know? CTRE is a member of ISU's Institute for Transportation (InTrans), which administers 15 centers and programs that are national leaders in transportation research, outreach, education, and workforce development.

Graduate students studying in the Traffic Operations Laboratory at the Institute for Transportation.

Iowa State's Mission:
Create, share, and apply knowledge to make
Iowa and the world a better place.

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The Alliance for Iowa State is a coalition of Iowa State alumni, parents, students, faculty, staff, and friends.
The Alliance advocates Iowa State University's land grant mission throughout Iowa
while focusing its advocacy on state legislators and public policy makers.

The Alliance for Iowa State is maintained by the Iowa State University Alumni Association.