Safety for motorists, pedestrians, and users of off-road trails is a primary goal for FHWA as well as its partners. Access roads in public lands include a variety of road types and speed conditions. Often, pedestrians and vehicles intermingle. For example, public lands can include the Blue Ridge Parkway to remote access points along U.S. Forest Service roads. Access can entail low vehicle volumes, typically, but in perilous locations, and often with mixed vehicles and speeds at gateway communities. Safety research and innovations ultimately help protect diverse users.

Research topics include the following:

• Safety Data Collection and Distribution for Federal Lands and Rural Areas
• Two-lane Road Safety Countermeasures
• Roadside Safety Analysis Tools for Performance-Based Design
• Guide for Timber Railing Approach for Low-Volume Roads
• W-Beam Terminals for Low-Volume Roads

Spotlight Project: Speed Management Safety Strategies at FLMA Gateway Locations

This research will review and document existing knowledge/data on speed management safety strategies near FLMA unit entrances. The review will be followed by field investigations. The project addresses safety.

Key deliverables include a literature review of speed management safety strategies as well as a matrix of strategies for the potential field investigation locations. A final report and presentation will include analysis and documented findings from the field investigation.

Spotlight Project: Edge Lane Roads

This research will investigate the safety and capacity-expanding potential of the Edge Lane Road (ELR) treatment on Federal lands. An ELR is a roadway that supports two-way motor vehicle traffic in a single center lane and vulnerable road users in the edge lanes on either side. ELRs show substantial promise in improving safety and expanding facilities for vulnerable road users such as bicyclists and pedestrians.

A primary product of this research will be an ELR implementation guide for Federal lands.

Remote roads, trails, and other publicly accessible routes through Federally owned and maintained lands pose challenges to collect data condition. In the awake of climate change, access points can change dramatically and quickly. Research is needed to find ways and tools to quicken the data collection despite challenging conditions.

• Asset Management at FLMAs
• Geospatial Tools
• Targeted Maintenance on Low Volume Roads and Applying FHWA’s Vulnerability Framework
• Alternative Approaches to Paved and Unpaved Road Condition Assessment Using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
• Evaluation of Small UAS for Steel-Member Bridge Supplemental Inspections
• Bike Technology for Trail Condition Data Collections
• Internally Cured Concrete and Shrinkage Reducing Admixtures

Spotlight Project: Pavement Preservation Performance Monitoring—Phase 1

This research will develop a systematic approach for assessing the performance of preservation treatments placed on FMLA road networks, resulting in enhanced pavement management practices. This project addresses resiliency.

Key products from this research include a comprehensive guidance document on best pavement preservation practices for programming, timing, and application cycles, contracting, treatment selection, performance measures, and monitoring; as well as a webinar/ presentation(s) to share the findings and recommendations. The guidance document will include best practices across FLMAs and recommendations.

Research conducted through the FLH/IRC Research Programs support the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions. The ability to integrate consideration of resilience in transportation decisionmaking is one of the corner stones to ensuring the U.S. Department of Transportation carries out research on the vulnerability of the transportation system.

• Building Resiliency through Maintenance on Low-Volume Roads

Spotlight Project: Developing an Automated, Geospatial, Model-based Support Tool for Assessing Road Culvert Vulnerability on U.S. Forest Service Experimental Forests

The research will develop a decision-support tool to inform design and management of resilient and sustainable forest road crossing infrastructure, particularly culverts, that align with flood models and expected design life.

The culvert-vulnerability tool will be built using four sequential modules (data compilation, data processing and fusion, modeling and model integration, and vulnerability assessment), and will function like a risk management system. The tool will remotely identify potentially vulnerable culverts based on historical and future precipitation data. The research addresses safety, climate/sustainability, and resiliency. The deliverable includes full deployment of the culvert-vulnerability tool for use by all FLMAs and other asset managers.

The Federal Government is addressing perceived inequities in transportation by supporting and engaging people and communities to promote safe, affordable, accessible, and multimodal access to opportunities and services while reducing transportation-related disparities and burdens in the built environment. This includes recreational sites, and public lands.

• Integrating Public Health and Equity in Transportation Planning for FLMAs

Spotlight Project: Multimodal Access is Equitable Access

The research will create, pilot, and evaluate Community Wayfinding Tools—including mapping, digital apps, coordination of services—to identify and bridge accessibility and transportation modal gaps between underserved communities and their regional public lands.

The research will engage local, specifically marginalized, populations throughout the process. The project addresses recreational transportation equity, community engagement, and access.

The final report will produce a suite of data and recommendations to enable FLMAs and other land managers to draw on community-led planning and data-driven technologies to develop projects, both locally, and at scale.

Rural transportation networks are critically important for domestic production and export of agriculture, mining, and energy commodities, as well as the quality of life for all Americans. Rural roads account for a significant proportion of total lane miles in the United States, and they play a significant role in our Nation’s transportation system, safely moving people and goods to their destinations. Additionally, rural areas face several transportation challenges relating to safety and travel reliability.

• Integrating Emerging Traveler Data Collection Methods

Advancements in products and techniques stemming from new technologies can impact the ways and methods that people access and use public lands. This focus area includes transformative research that expresses the commitment and support of technological advancements.

Spotlight Project: Automated Vehicle Shuttles in National Parks

The NPS implemented electric automated shuttle pilots at Wright Brothers National Memorial (WRBR) and Yellowstone National Park in 2021. These automated shuttle pilots—the first-ever automated shuttle pilots at a recreational public lands site in the country—allowed NPS to test the suitability of emerging automated vehicle technologies in public lands.

The two parks chosen for these pilots each represent a milestone innovation in American history. With WRBR as the location of the first successful airplane flights, and Yellowstone as the world’s first national park, these pilots build upon this historic legacy of innovation and advancement, allowing the NPS to test emerging technologies to chart a plan forward in the future of transportation to and within public lands destinations.

For more information, please see:
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/transportation/emerging-mobility.htm

Fragmentation of aquatic habitats by dams, culverts, and other infrastructure is a primary threat to aquatic species throughout the United States. The need to recover aquatic habitat connectivity helps the movement of migratory fish species and other aquatic organisms and improves the overall quality of the watershed. Another benefit of widened stream crossings is the increased capacity to carry debris flow and diminish the risk of structure failure or road overtopping (i.e., stream water running over a road) during high-stream events. Stream continuity, or the uninterrupted connection of a river network, is not always a primary consideration when designing road-stream crossings.

Spotlight Project: Development of Wildlife-Inclusive Design Principles for Transportation Infrastructure on Public Lands

The project will compile research on existing wildlife-inclusive design approaches and establish a multiagency working group to develop a guidebook on how to effectively plan and design transportation infrastructure projects that are synergistic with the ecosystems in which they are constructed. The project addresses sustainability and inclusive design.

Phase 1 focuses on research and partner collaboration culminating in a guidebook of best practices on how to incorporate wildlife-inclusive elements into the design of transportation infrastructure while Phase 2 develops the guidebook and defines a monitoring plan.

Spotlight Project: Fish Passage Monitoring Protocol

Monitoring protocol that assists field technicians to identify opportunities for improved fish passage through the design and construction of roadway-stream crossing that emulate natural stream beds.

 See the following link for more information: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/engineering/hydraulics/library_arc.cfm?pub_number=204&id=145

FLH and its partners are committed to supplying the best means to preserve the customer experience on Public Lands. The unique interplay of natural forces with transportation safety, traffic management, and the evolving diverse modes of transportation expand the realm in which to explore new horizons.

Spotlight Project: Use of E-Bikes in Public Lands

The proposed Phase 2 e-bike research project will directly inform the ongoing management of electric mountain bikes (eMTBs) in local, State, and Federal public lands. Land managers in the Forest Service, NPS, Bureau of Land Management, State departments of conservation and recreation, and local and other public lands organizations need quantitative data about eMTB use, including potential safety and natural resource impacts and/or benefits, to inform policy and access/management decision making.

Without this research, land managers and public lands user groups will continue to have limited objective, data-driven evidence to substantiate whether to allow, prohibit, or otherwise regulate eMTBs in public lands.

Spotlight Project: Recreational Travel Forecasting

The research will implement Phase 2 of a two-phase project to address improved traveler information and wayfinding.

Phase 1 includes developing a recreational travel forecasting state of the industry report, a travel forecasting tool using vehicle volume data or already collected data, and a communications strategy to pilot in select parks.

Phase 2 seeks to develop a recreational travel forecasting tool with emerging data, update the communications strategy, and perform a tradeoff analysis of the tools with different data sources.
 

Research is conducted on a variety of topics to address the transportation needs of federally recognized Tribal Governments in the United States by providing safe and adequate transportation and public road access to and within Indian Reservations, Indian Lands, and Alaska Native Village communities. Activities include:

• Making Transportation Planning Applicable in Tribal Communities
• Transportation Planning in Tribal Communities Research Study
• Applying Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Framework to Tribal Transportation Planning
• Virtual Public Involvement Toolkit for Public and Tribal Lands Transportation Decisionmaking
• Ice-Road Establishment and Management
• Vulnerability Assessment Framework for Tribes
• Pedestrian Safety on Tribal Lands