Research and Implementation

The Research Program Management (RPM) section is located within the Research Division of the Bureau of Planning and Research (BPR). The RPM section develops, manages, and administers the PennDOT Research Program. The Research Program strives to support the strategic agenda of PennDOT by initiating and managing project activities that attempt to solve real-world transportation issues.

Featured Projects

This project assessed the **safety and reliability of steel girders** during erection and construction following PennDOT specifications and provided recommendations to update those policies to reflect recent changes to AASHTO’s wind pressure calculations.

Potential Use and Applications for Reclaimed Millings — This project investigated **advanced data management, analysis, mining and inference approaches for bridge health monitoring, safety evaluation, reliability, and resilience assessment** of 10 instrumented bridges in Pennsylvania. The work consisted of the analysis of the data streamed by the sensors and the comparison of some specific readings to the numerical predictions obtained with the implementation of finite element models.

The project evaluated **alternative uses of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) in geotechnical infrastructure**, beyond pavement applications, and provided new guidelines and recommendations for RAP reuse in PennDOT projects.

There's more! Learn about:

Other active, completed, and archived projects
Current contracting mechanisms in use today
PennDOT's Transportation Pooled Fund Participation with other states
RPM's process for implementing research results

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Mission Statement

The Research Division manages and coordinates research, education and technology transfer programs and projects on behalf of PennDOT. The Division supports PennDOT's strategic agenda by addressing vital transportation needs of the Commonwealth.