Agencies providing transportation infrastructure, operations and services are facing increasing needs for research, development (R&D) and technology transfer services due to rapid changes in technology. How they procure R&D services efficiently has been of great interest to top management personnel of such agencies. Since most transportation agencies are government entities, procurement of goods and services must follow strict procedures that ensure transparency (accountability), fairness and objectivity in the awards. However, these procedures have often slowed down the process of procuring R&D. The time taken from problem statement to contracting and project execution has often been too long, thereby making such agencies slow to acquire R&D services and to keep abreast with the fast-changing technology. Therefore, the question has been: are there mechanisms that would speed-up the procurement of R&D and still meet the goals of transparency, fairness and objectivity in the awards? Furthermore, are there mechanisms that improve agencies' efficient access to a large spectrum of research competencies? In this paper, the authors discuss one such mechanism that can be used to facilitate the procurement of R&D services. The mechanism involves a strategic partnering between transportation agencies and academic/research or consulting community through consortia. The paper outlines benefits and shortcomings of such a strategic partnering. The potentials for an agency and a consortium to become "Learning organisations" through such partnerships are also discussed. The authors' discussion draws significantly from their experience in running such a consortium. This consortium is known as the Transportation Infrastructure Research Consortium (TIRC) that developed a strategic partnering with the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). TIRC is a consortium of 10 universities and two research organisations in New York State. Currently, TIRC is in its sixth year of operation. While the partnership is still in the learning phase, there are a number of useful past experiences that the authors discuss. They not only describe this partnership, but also analyse the reasons for its success and further point out possible improvements and pitfalls in such a relationship. (Author/publisher)
Abstract