USDOT releases five-year strategic plan to foster transport innovation

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has announced that it has released its ‘Research, Development and Technology’ (RD&T) Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years (FY) 2022-2026. The new RD&T Plan continues the authority’s leadership role in supporting, fostering and safeguarding transportation innovation so that it meets strategic priorities and objections articulated in its strategic plan. 

“We recognise that the work of research, development and technology deployment takes collaborative effort across the public, private, academic and non-profit sectors,” said USDOT Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology and Chief Science Officer Dr Robert C. Hampshire. “In this time of rapid change and experimentation, research must drive the learning necessary for the public sector to keep pace with technological advancement and to adapt to evolving socio-economic needs. By providing a vision for a future transportation system made possible by research, we seek to foster collaborative innovation to create a better transportation future for all.”  

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The RD&T Strategic Plan supports USDOT’s mission to deliver the world’s leading transportation system, serving the American people and economy through the safe, efficient, sustainable and equitable movement of people and goods. In addition, the plan provides a long-term vision for how research and technology deployment can help transform the nation’s transportation system over the next five years.  

Furthermore, this RD&T Strategic Plan will also guide the more than $5 billion in research activities funded through the Biden-Harris Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which has created new programmes to drive innovation, create jobs and support the deployment of transformative technologies, including: 

• Providing $500 million in funding to the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Program, to kickstart a new generation of smart city innovation 
• Investing in University Transportation Centers (UTCs) that work on climate, equity and innovation – including at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority Serving Institutions  
• Establishing an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Infrastructure (ARPA-I) to scale up research and development efforts to keep pace with and to drive innovation
• Authorising $50 million per year in funding to establish a new Open Research Initiative to accelerate the achievement of USDOT’s priorities and goals by funding unsolicited research proposals that yield disruptive technologies with high-impact potential.