Research Impact

Over 158 research projects have been funded by the Midwest Transportation Center since 2012, when Iowa State University’s Institute for Transportation was awarded the Region 7 UTC grant.

The MTC’s research portfolio covers the following focus areas:
  • Asset management: performance modeling, life cycle cost, decision support tools, risk based approaches, next generation performance measures
  • Condition monitoring: pavement distress data, nondestructive evaluation, bridge health monitoring
  • Freight: freight development plans, truck firm size, and safety performance
  • Intermodal: trucking and intermodal hubs, optimizing intermodal logistics
  • Materials: pavement design using asphalt rubber binder, risk of D-cracking in concrete aggregates, green concrete, pervious concrete
  • Safety: roadway departure, work zone, speeding, countermeasures
  • Other modes: management systems for inland waterways, strategic decision support for airport planning, urban transit asset management, and sustainability systems
Partner universities led more than half of MTC research projects to date and are recognized as providing practical research resulting in ready-to-implement solutions.

Research, outreach have led to more use of Safety Edge to reduce drop-off crashes

Iowa rural two-lane highways are safer today because of research and mar­keting by the Midwest Transportation (MTC) at Iowa State University on a roadway design feature called the Safety Edge, a low cost countermeasure to roadway departures.

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A new bridge structural health monitoring system can provide immediate and easily accessible data

The Bridge Engineering Center (BEC) at Iowa State University's Institute for Transportation and the Iowa Department of Transportation, are getting closer to making their continuous, real time, and autonomous bridge structural health monitoring system ready for mainstream use.

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InTrans researchers are studying ways to slow traffic, increase safety in rural small towns

Rural communities don't often have the resources necessary to address slowing high-speed through traffic. However, researchers at the Midwest Transportation Center (MTC) at Iowa State University have examined several methods of traffic calming in the hopes of making these communities' roads safer.

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