ATRI Board Approves Research Priorities

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) Board of Directors has approved the 2017 Top Research Priorities as identified by ATRI’s Research Advisory Committee (RAC). ATRI’s RAC developed the list of recommended research topics at its meeting held in Dallas in March, and the ATRI Board vetted and approved that list at its meeting last week.

Several of ATRI’s 2017 top priority studies will focus on improving congestion choke points at the nation’s top truck bottlenecks as identified in ATRI’s annual listing. The top priority topics will also look at various impacts of technology on the industry now and into the future.

The 2017 ATRI top research priorities are:

Driven to Distraction: Examining the impact of technology deployment inside the truck that may either exacerbate or reduce truck driver distraction. The research will also look at the role of car driver distraction on trucking industry crash involvement.
Cumulative Economic Impact of Trucking Regulations: Examining the potential for developing a standardized methodology for conducting regulatory impact analyses (RIA) of trucking industry regulations, which can then be applied across agencies and regulations to identify industry costs.
Hours of Service (HOS) Flexibility; A Possible Solution to Bottlenecks: Exploring the opportunity for addressing some of the nation’s worst congestion choke points through flexibility in the federal HOS rules, which would allow drivers to wait out the most congested periods of the day.
Impact of E-Commerce on Trucking: Mapping potential impacts of e-commerce to the trucking industry’s top industry issues.
Truck Bottleneck Trends; Economic Changes or Infrastructure Improvements: Conducting a deep dive into ATRI’s Annual Truck Bottleneck List to identify specific infrastructure improvements that will positively impact congestion.
Autonomous Truck Impacts on the Truck Driver: A detailed analysis of how autonomous truck technologies will change the operational environment and driving requirements for commercial drivers.