Research

The center's goal is to produce high quality research that is relevant to real transportation problems and are understandable to a variety of user groups.

Practitioners and elected officials have little time or inclination to fully read research reports to sort out what might be useable information and ideas. For research results to be used in the field there must be a process to involve potential user groups in the research process from the onset of each project.

We intend to build such user groups into each project and provide the opportunity for the research team to be involved in an iterative process with potential users as the project moves forward.

One way to involve user groups in the research process which we are exploring is to provide research and facilitation resources in a joint effort with Caltrans, the regional transportation authorities and their state organization the Self Help Counties Coalition to improve the design and delivery process of construction projects. The leadership of Caltrans is very open to such joint efforts. There is a critical need to establish a process to document perceived barriers and to direct research to ways of reducing such barriers.

Potential Research Projects (PDF format) - Focus Areas and Topics:  This document lists six key focus areas (Delivery, Stewardship, Mobility, Transportation Finance, Goods Movement, and Public Transit) and highlights topics of interest for each area that are of particular interest to the Leonard Transportation Center.