The CRP was created in 1993 and served as the initial impetus for the creation of the UMass Transportation Center. Under this program, MassHighway and UMass established a multi-year Interagency Service Agreement under which Task Order contracts for faculty research at the several UMass campuses are entered. Research under this program encompasses all aspects of MassHighway's activities including structural and pavement analyses, planning, and Intelligent Transportation Systems.

Click here for more information on the Cooperative Research Program.

RTIC was established as a cooperative venture between the U.S. Department of Transportation, MassHighway and the University of Massachusetts for the purpose of providing travel information in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. The initial focus RTIC was travel times and congestion information over the Coolidge Bridge, and is currently expanding its coverage area. The primary funding for RTIC is a congressional appropriation matched by a combination of money, equipment and staffing committed to the program by MassHighway and UMass Amherst. Arrangements are currently underway to coordinate RTIC activities with related emergency management activities being organized by the University and local communities.

RTIC maintains a website of traffic conditions at MassTraveler.com

Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) was established nationally in 1981, while the Baystate Roads Program (Massachusetts LTAP) began in 1986. It is a cooperative effort of the Federal Highway Administration, Massachusetts Highway Department, and the University of Massachusetts.

Its purpose is to provide information and training on transportation and related topics, to answer the needs and problems of local agencies, to identify and transfer new technologies and innovations into a usable format, and to operate as a link between transportation research and practicing highway personnel.

It provides a wide variety of free publications, free videos from an extensive lending library of transportation and training tapes, technical support, and computer information, as well as referral assistance. It offers free training or information workshops that can be arranged to cover community-specific concerns, while a variety of prescheduled workshops are also held throughout Massachusetts. It publishes a quarterly newsletter, Mass Interchange, to keep state and local agencies informed of new technologies, innovations, seminars, and service changes.

MTAP coordinates and delivers customized in-house workshops to Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) personnel throughout the state. Technical training is at the core of this program, however, personal development topics are also included to meet the needs of both technical and administrative staff. Workshop topics have included:

• NEPA & Transportation Decision Making
• MUTCD Millennium Edition
• Chain Saw Skill & Safety
• Hot Mix Asphalt Construction
• Storm Water Management

Trainers include public and private sector engineering professionals, communications consultants, and safety experts. Some classes are custom-designed for EOT, while others are prepackaged courses available through the National Highway Institute. Whether created specifically for EOT or prepackaged, instructors are called on to provide informative, interesting and cost-effective training. MTAP staff advertises, host workshops, provide technical representation and guide course content, when necessary.

MTAP Library publications are available through the University of Massachusetts Transportation Center.

UMassSAFE is a dynamic partnership between the Massachusetts Governor's Highway Safety Bureau (GHSB) and the University of Massachusetts College of Engineering Transportation Center. The partnership combines the GHSB's program expertise with the University's evaluation and research capacities, creating a unique entity able to examine traffic safety issues from academic and applied perspectives, simultaneously. UMassSAFE is a transportation research program that houses a statewide data warehouse, conducts transportation safety research on various topics, and translates research into the development of highway safety programs.

UMassSAFE has the unique ability to examine highway safety problems from both a research and programming perspective, allowing the team to develop distinctive solutions to transportation safety problems. Idea exchange across disciplines -- transportation engineering, public policy, public health, traffic safety education and enforcement -- is combined with the application of a rigorous scientific structure of problem identification, program development and program evaluation. UMassSAFE's core function continues to be reducing crashes and crash injuries by methodically applying the best of research and the practical know-how of community practice.

Dr. Michael Knodler, Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, assumed the role of UMassSAFE director, effective June 16, 2006. While this is a new role for Dr. Knodler, he has been actively involved with UMassSAFE since its inception, as a Research Fellow and most recently as the Principal Investigator on several projects. Dr. Knodler's areas of interest include transportation safety, traffic operations, and human factors research. In addition to his research interests, Dr. Knodler has taught classes in highway design, traffic operations, advanced concepts in traffic safety, and transportation engineering.

Click here for a brief description of UMassSAFE's current tasks.

• Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES)

  CODES links information collected in crash reports to databases that contain medical information. The CODES project was developed by the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) in response to a Congressional mandate to study the effectiveness of safety belts and motorcycle helmets. The design of a system such as CODES, which is able to interconnect information from the different stages of an injury crash, was required to report the benefits of safety belts and motorcycle helmets on injury severity, health care costs, mortality and morbidity. NHTSA recognized that these types of outcome data could be obtained only at the state level. Since 1992, 33 states, including Massachusetts, have been funded to develop CODES programs, conduct data linkages and report findings to NHTSA in a standard format.

  CODES data have the potential to improve highway safety research as they offer a broader view of crash injuries by providing a linked data set that complements crash data with medical data. For example, specific information on type and body location of the injury and the associated hospital charges in dollars provides valuable data to better analyze the nature of injuries and consequences of crashes. Analyses of this nature are necessary to identify more effective countermeasures aimed at minimizing injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes.

Principal Investigator: Michael A. Knodler Jr.
Sponsor: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration