Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multi-modal Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CIAMTIS)

Call for Proposals

Due:  Summer/Fall 2019

The Center for Integrated Asset Management for Multi-modal Transportation Infrastructure Systems (CIAMTIS) invites research, education, and technology transfer proposals to support the Region 3 University Transportation Center’s (UTC) goal of Improving the Durability and Extending the Life of Transportation Infrastructure.  The goal will be realized through the Center’s mission of improving integrated asset management by enabling transportation agencies to invest infrastructure funds when and where they are most critically needed.  This will lead to opportunities for agencies to deliver enhanced, safe and cost-effective infrastructure management, and thereby gain the most benefit from available funds.  Center activities may support multiple modes of transportation, although it is anticipated that most projects will emphasize the Center’s strengths in highway and rail modes.

To support the Center’s goal and mission, the Consortium partners have identified three strategic thrust areas.  These include:

  • Application of Innovative Materials and Technologies, including research on development and deployment of new materials and technologies to improve durability, facilitate safe and rapid construction and repair, extend service life, and reduce life-cycle costs of transportation infrastructure.
  • Condition Assessment and Health Monitoring to provide rapid, repeatable, and reliable assessment of the present condition and future rate of degradation of aging infrastructure facilities. This may include development of automated, and remote access (e.g., using drones) inspection and monitoring technologies, novel imaging and analysis, nondestructive evaluation, self-sensing and health monitoring techniques, and algorithms for mining, processing, and integration of large sets of data obtained from multiple monitoring techniques over time.
  • Infrastructure Management and Innovative Financing, to advance infrastructure asset management at the project, network, and system decision levels.  The goal is to support informed collaborative and multi-objective decision-making on investments and address societal needs for safe, reliable, and resilient transportation infrastructure systems.

Proposals should use the attached form to define the research problem (or education or technology transfer needs), articulate a scope of work, and prepare a schedule and budget.  In addition, researchers should identify how they will implement their research results into practice, and also comply with the Center’s data management plan.  The Center especially encourages proposals that are collaborative among two or more universities in the Consortium.  In addition, the Year 1 proposals awarded a significant number of projects related to innovative materials and condition assessment of bridge structures.  Special consideration will be given to projects that address infrastructure management and innovative financing topics, as well as topics related to pavements and rail.  

Submission:  Please submit the entire proposal, including the budget, in a single .pdf document to the Region 3 UTC Box folder, which will be shared in subsequent correspondence.  Alternatively, you may submit your proposal to Eric Donnell at edonnell@engr.psu.edu

Selection Criteria:  The following criteria will be considered when making awards in response to this call for proposals:

  1. Prior to preparing a proposal, faculty should correspond with their Consortium point-of-contact to confirm that the topic aligns with the CIAMTIS themes, and that the proposed research team are all members of the Consortium.
  2. Proposals will be anonymously peer-reviewed by three faculty members from universities within the CIAMTIS consortium.  The proposals will be scored on the following scale:  not recommended, recommended, highly recommended. 
  3. Proposals will be scored on the following scale:  0 points for not recommended, 1 point for recommended, and 2 points for highly recommended.  A bonus point will be offered to multi-university submissions.
  4. Proposals must receive a total score of 6 or more to receive funding consideration.
  5. Matching commitments must be secured in order to receive an award.