Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure (CSTI)

In 2006, the Roadway Infrastructure Group (RIG) became the Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure (CSTI). The center focuses its research efforts in the areas of sustainable transportation infrastructure, pavement materials, design and analysis, pavement and bridge condition assessment, life-cycle cost analysis and environmental assessment, infrastructure/ asset management, non-destructive testing, infrastructure maintenance, preservation, and renewal, network science and engineering, innovative sensing technology application, and winter maintenance and operations.

The vision for the Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure is to be a worldwide leader in transportation infrastructure research and education by conducting high-impact research for accelerating renewal, increasing safety, reducing life-cycle costs, and ensuring sustainability of transportation infrastructure systems; being a paradigm of collaboration among governments, academia, and industries; and providing an excellent environment, resources, and instruction for students to learn fundamental concepts, acquire advanced knowledge, and gain practical experience

The Center for Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure's mission is to advance the state of knowledge and provide high quality education and research in Transportation Infrastructure including the following specific areas: sustainable transportation infrastructure, pavement materials, design and analysis, pavement and bridge condition assessment, life-cycle cost analysis and environmental assessment, infrastructure/ asset management, non-destructive testing, infrastructure maintenance, preservation, and renewal, innovative sensing technology application, and winter maintenance and operations; conduct outreach activities to disseminate and implement our research nationally and internationally; enhance the transportation infrastructure workforce by increasing the number of graduate students in the pavement and infrastructure field and strengthening the undergraduate Transportation Infrastructure track.

Current CSTI Projects

Field Support for VDOT Quiet Pavement Implementation Program

This research effort supports the Virginia Department of Transportation program for exploring lower–noise pavements that includes both asphalt and concrete pavement technologies by documenting all aspects of the progression to "routine application of quiet pavement." The program will evaluate a New Generation Open graded friction Course (OGFC) mix (often referred to as Porous Friction Course, PFC) and low noise concrete textures constructed using actual diamond grinding equipment (often called Next Generation Concrete Surface, NGCS). Specific tasks include the determination of as–constructed functional and structural properties of the various technologies to be evaluated by monitoring the performance over two full winters of service.

Asphalt Materials Characterization in Support Of Implementation of the Proposed Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide

The primary objective of this project is to perform a full hot-mix asphalt (HMA) characterization to support the implementation of mechanistic-empirical pavement design procedures in Virginia.

Virginia Sustainable Pavement Research Consortium

This partnership between VTTI, the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research (VCTIR), and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) focused on optimizing the research efforts for developing and implementing better pavement and material testing, assessment, design, analysis and management tools. VA-SPRC is a world leader in pavement and materials research and education and an example of collaboration between government, academia, and industry and is educating the pavement engineers of the future.

Splash–Spray Assessment Tool Development Program

CSTI is leading an international team (composed also by TRL, APTech, and VCTIR) that is developing an assessment tool to characterize the propensity of highway sections to generate splash and spray during rainfall and for this propensity to be assessed in terms of the impact on drivers. This FHWA-sponsored project will deliver a robust model to predict splash and spray generation and will consist of three components: (1) water film model, (2) splash/ spray model, and (3) an exposure model. The final model will be practical and applicable by all highway administrations throughout the country.

Development and Demonstration of Pavement Friction Management Programs

This project is helping FHWA in their efforts to help state DOTs implement proactive pavement friction management (PFM) programs. The project is supporting the development of investigatory and intervention thresholds for pavement friction and macro-texture by owner-agencies will make a significant contribution to selecting and maintaining the most appropriate (and cost-effective) pavement surfaces to increase highway safety by reducing crashes and their severity. The overall goal is to move towards a proactive approach to help achieve the recent goal of reducing the annual fatalities in half by 2030.

SHRP 2 R06(F) Development of Continuous Deflection

The objective of the project is to carry out a critical and unbiased assessment of (1) the potential of existing continuous deflection devices as practical and cost-effective tools for use in the development of optimum pavement rehabilitation strategies on rapid renewal projects, and (2) their capability for screening structural deficient sections and scoping their needs at the network level.

Sustainable Pavement Program

CSTI is a member of a diverse team, lead by Applied Pavement Technologies, which is supporting FHWA on its effort to advance the knowledge and practice of sustainability through a sustainable pavements program. The diverse team includes experts in all facets of pavement materials, pavement engineering, and sustainability analyses, as well as extensive knowledge of effective methods of synthesizing research and development results into useable technology and implementation. Among other task, the team will develop guidelines for designing and constructing sustainable pavement systems; evaluating materials, processes, technologies, and tools to aid in evaluation, design, and construction of sustainable pavement systems; and technology transfer and deployment activities.

Integrated Infrastructure Asset Monitoring, Assessment and Management

CSTI is collaborating with Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Virginia, VCTIR, and other researchers at VTTI on an effort to enable integrated infrastructure monitoring and management – spanning all elements of the transportation infrastructure. This effort includes field tests of typical prototype integrated transportation infrastructure monitoring/management systems and the development of an integrated system architecture that will pull together monitoring and management systems intended for single elements of the transportation infrastructure and enhance and expand existing data collection activities..

Previous CSTI Projects

Asset Management Data Collection for Supporting Business Decisions

This project investigated how state DOTs are linking their data collection policies, standards, and practices to their Asset Management decision-making processes (especially for project selection) which will eventually help transportation agencies tailor their data collection activities according to their real decision-making needs..

Validation of the Mechanistic-Empirical Analysis Procedure to Determine In-Place HMA Layer Modulus for Rehabilitation Projects

This project evaluated various methods for characterizing existing HMA layers for rehabilitation purposes and provided a recommendation on which one to use in the Commonwealth.

Soft Computing-Based Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Transportation Infrastructure Investments

This NSF grant used of soft computing for developing practical economic analysis tools to support transportation infrastructure asset management. The project produced a rule-based software tool that allows infrastructure agencies to analyze the life-cycle costs of alternative roadway rehabilitation projects and proposed a general framework to expand the software and include non-monetary factors into the analysis.

Ground Penetrating Radar for Moisture Measurements in Pavement Structural Layers-Pilot Demonstration Project

The objective of this project was to demonstrate a methodology for non-destructive evaluation of moisture in pavement structural layers in order to determine areas where under-drain pipes might be non-functional.

Development of an Integrated Quality Index for Accepting HMA Materials and Construction

This project explored the possibility of integrating all of the individual quality indicators for HMA construction and corresponding pay factors into a single value that can be used to compute aggregated pay factors and investigated other quality parameters that could be added to the procedure, including the use of mechanistically based material characterization properties such as the dynamic modulus.

Quality Management of Pavement Condition Data Collection

This project, funded by the NAS, documented quality management practices employed by public road and highway agencies for automated, semi-automated, and manual pavement condition data collection and delivery. The synthesis examined the quality management techniques used in pavement data collection and how these practices impact the quality of the decisions made based on the data collected.

Pavement Research at the Virginia Smart Road

CSTI led the pavement component of the Virginia Smart Road project. This project included extensive pavement instrumentation, material characterization, and structural and functional evaluations during and after construction. Information collected in this project has been used to verify different pavement structural models in support of the development of mechanistic empirical pavement design methods, document the response of innovative pavement systems, advancing the characterization of asphaltic materials, and improving the functional and structural evaluation practices.

International Sustainable Pavements Workshop

CETI, in partnership with the Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre, organized a workshop, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and FHWA, to discuss sustainability in pavements and compare US and European activities in this field. The workshop developed a Research Agenda for Sustainable Pavements.

Geographic Information System Applications in Pavement Management

This project documented the state-of-the-practice and knowledge of pavement management applications using GIS and other spatial technologies. The main issues reviewed include the use of GIS and other spatial tools to enhance PMS data collection, integration, management and dissemination, map generation, and PMS spatial analysis.