COST Received Funding as Part of UTCs Program

U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood announced on January 17, 2012 $77 million in grants to 22 University Transportation Centers (UTCs) to advance research and education programs that address critical transportation challenges facing our nation.    The UTCs, which are located throughout the United States, conduct research that directly supports the priorities of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the participating universities are a critical part of our national transportation strategy.

In the past over 20 years, TSU has been a member of Southwest Region UTC (SWUTC), which is led by Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) at Texas A&M University and included University of Texas at Austin and TSU.  In the most recent re-competition process, SWUTC added two new members, University of New Orleans and Louisiana State University.  Without surprise, this reorganized consortium won the regional UTC award again  in this re-competition.  The TSU portion of this Regional UTC award is administered through Center for Transportation Training and Research (CTTR) at TSU, which was originally founded by Dr. Naomi W. Lede and is presently directed by Dr. Carol Lewis. 

Another exciting news is that TSU received a brand new Tier 1 National UTC award.    TSU joined a new consortium for the Tier 1 UTC competition.  This team was led by University of Idaho, which also included Old Dominion University, Syracuse University, Texas Southern University, and Virginia Polytechnic and State University.  Based on the official announcement on January 17, 2012, this new consortium was awarded Tier 1 funding (3.5 million dollars annual funding from U.S. DOT Research and Innovative Technology administration).  The TSU portion of this new Tier 1 National UTC will be administered through the Innovative Transportation Research Institute (ITRI), which is directed by Dr. Lei Yu.  The theme of this new center is Green ITS, focusing on transportation environmental issues.

The official announcement by U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood can be found at:

http://www.rita.dot.gov/press_room/press_releases/rita_001_12/html/rita_001_12.html

The list of newly funded UTCs can be found at:

http://utc.dot.gov/about/grant_recipients/html/2012_grant_recipients.html