Measuring Quality: A Review Process for the University Transportation Centers Program

The University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) will soon enter its sixth program year. Program goals have been refined, center capabilities to meet goals have grown, and program funding has been reauthorized through federal fiscal year 1997 by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). To solidify these gains, DOT program staff has requested the assistance of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Research Council in developing a formal evaluation process and implementation plan to measure the progress of the centers on an ongoing basis. The recommendations of the study committee convened to carry out this task are presented in this report. The primary goal of the review process should be to provide feedback to centers and DOT on the quality of center programs and opportunities for their improvement. A key component of the review is to assess the extent to which the expected synergy, or value added, from funding centers instead of individual research and education projects is being realized. The report is organized in three chapters. Chapter 1 examines the structure and organization of the UTC Program and provides an overview of program goals, major shifts and clarifications in program direction, and key issues affecting program progress. The chapter ends with a summary and discussion of the implications of program characteristics for developing a formal evaluation process. Chapter 2 is focused directly on evaluation issues. Current UTC Program oversight procedures are described, evaluation processes used by other university center programs are reviewed, and the applicability of these approaches to the UTC Program is examined. The study committee's recommendations for a UTC evaluation process are presented in Chapter 3.