NCHRP | Crossroads

Transportation agencies are facing rapid technological change—from artificial intelligence and machine learning to connected and automated vehicles, data governance, cybersecurity, advanced communications, and emerging analytical tools. These technologies are transforming how transportation systems are planned, operated, and maintained, while simultaneously reshaping workforce needs. This guide from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program offers practical strategies and resources to recruit, develop, and retain a workforce capable of adopting and leveraging emerging technologies.

Industry Challenges

As new technologies proliferate, agencies struggle with a number of overlapping challenges.

Outdated organizational structures and siloed departments
Skill gaps in advanced technical areas
Difficulty competing with private-sector salaries
Limited awareness of transportation tech careers among students
Pipeline shortages due to retirements and evolving skill demands

The guide categorizes these challenges into three core areas: Institutional Agility, Staffing Adaptability, and Workforce Pipeline.

1. Institutional Agility

Agencies must evolve organizational flexibility to integrate new technologies into their existing practices. There are a number of steps they can take to help with this.

Build multidisciplinary teams to break down silos and improve collaboration across planning, operations, IT, and field staff.
Modernize organizational structures and culture, including job rotations, co-location, communities of practice, refreshed licensure requirements, and skills-based management.
Develop business cases for new positions, such as data analysts, AI specialists, cybersecurity roles, and system engineers.
Enhance benefits packages beyond salary—highlight flexibility, professional development, hybrid schedules, innovation opportunities, and mentorship.

2. Staffing Adaptability

While the agency must modernize its processes, it must also provide a way for staff to develop the required skills to navigate new requirements. Should they hire, contract, or provide development channels for existing staff? The report has some suggestions.

Identify and formalize emerging positions across traffic operations, data analysis, IT/OT, hardware maintenance, policy/innovation, and design/construction.
Use a decision tool to determine whether to upskill current staff, hire new staff, or outsource work based on urgency, core function, and internal capacity.
Develop and promote new career paths that incorporate technical and soft skills, including leadership, communication, and innovation.
Leverage vendor contracts to include staff training, system handoff support, and access to vendor training sessions.
Recruit from adjacent industries with transferable skills—IT, telecommunications, military, emergency management, gaming, and manufacturing.
Connect staff to professional organizations and national training programs to keep technology skills current.

3. Long-term Workforce Pipeline

In addition to responding to immediate needs in the organization, the agency should look at strengthening the long-term talent pipeline with education partners.

Build partnerships with K–12, community colleges, trade programs, and universities through advisory committees, career fairs, mentorship, and public awareness campaigns.
Expand internships, apprenticeships, faculty exchanges, and hands-on training opportunities in emerging technology areas.
Collaborate on curriculum modernization, integrating interdisciplinary programs that blend engineering, IT, data science, and policy.
Invest in or share technology labs, equipment, and research opportunities to expose learners to real-world systems.
Support research initiatives that incorporate workforce development, outreach, and student engagement.

Conclusion

Emerging technologies offer transformative benefits for transportation systems but realizing those benefits hinges on the workforce. Agencies must take proactive, structured steps to evolve their organizations, strengthen recruitment and retention strategies, and build sustainable talent pipelines. This guide provides a flexible, practical framework to help you look at your organization and think about how some of these ideas apply to it, and how they may help you develop your own strategy for improving how you prepare for emerging technologies.

Read the complete report:

NCHRP Research Report 1174 (website or PDF)

Additional resources

Local agencies are increasingly looking at converting low-trafficked paved roads to gravel at the end of their life span to make budgets stretch. However, agencies have few resources to guide them in this process.

The Minnesota Local Road Research Board recently approved funding for a guidebook on effective practices for converting severely distressed paved roads to unpaved roads. The document will help engineers select roads for conversion, safely conduct conversions and communicate the rationale to the public. No such published document currently exists.

Montana State University researchers has been hired to develop the guidebook based on needs the research team previously identified in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program’s Synthesis 485, “Converting Paved Roads to Unpaved. The guidebook, anticipated to be published in late 2019, will include flowcharts that guide practitioners through decision-making processes. A companion webinar is also planned.

The guidebook will be divided into chapters, which will cover:

Methods to determine if a road is a candidate for conversion and determine the existing road materials and condition.
Methods to convert a road from paved to unpaved.
Methods to assess the life-cycles cost of construction and maintenance of the unpaved road.
Tools to effectively inform and communicate with the public
Safety implications of converting a severely distressed paved road to an unpaved road.

Background
While low- volume roads are typically identified as having an annual average daily traffic (AADT) of less than 400, roads that are appropriate candidates for conversion will typically have an AADT of less than 150.

These roads are often used by agricultural and extraction industries or to access homes and recreational areas. The type of road users, traffic patterns and vehicle types are all factors that need to be considered in the decision to unpave a road. Other factors include road condition, safety, agency maintenance and maintenance capabilities, as well as a life-cycle cost comparison of maintenance options (continued maintenance of the deteriorating road, rehabilitation of the paved road or conversion to an unpaved surface).

According to the research team, very limited information is available about converted roads, and what information is available often comes in the form of newspaper articles and anecdotal accounts of road conversions.

The document will serve as a formal and peer-reviewed information source. The use of the guide and acceptance of the practice of converting from paved to unpaved surfaces (unpaving) where warranted will provide a case for the acceptance of road conversions as another low-volume road management strategy.

Watch for new developments on this project. Other Minnesota research can be found at lrrb.org and MnDOT.gov/research