A Snapshot of Pavement Engineering Papers Presented at the 2013 Annual Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washington DC, USA

Introduction

The Annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) meeting in the US is held every year in the month of January in Washington, DC. This meeting is very well attended, and most people who are involved in consulting work, teaching or research that are related to some aspects of transportation engineering, try to attend it. There are numerous parallel sessions spread out in three hotels, and the subjects include numerous topics ranging from administration and management, design, education and training, operations and traffic management materials, pavements, aviation and vehicles, and equipment. The number of papers/presentations has been growing steadily over the years and this year, there were more than 4,000 presentations in approximately 750 sessions, with a record attendance of approximately 12,000.

Apart from listening to speakers about latest research work in the transportation area, and participating in committee meetings to discuss ongoing work and future session proposals and generate problem statements, most people enjoy the opportunity to meet and network with transportation professionals from other agencies and universities. Everyone who has been to this meeting agrees that it is an enlightening experience, and there are people who have been attending this meeting for decades – they would not miss it for anything!

Probably the best part of the annual TRB meeting is receiving the compendium of research papers - this year there were 2,400 papers available. It is very critical for transportation professionals, and students and researchers to be aware of ongoing work, state-of-the-art and state of the practice in their respective areas, and specifications that are being implemented. A careful review of the relevant papers is a great way to stay abreast in the profession and many professionals and students do travel from other countries to attend the conference. However, in many cases, it may not be able for people to devote the time and/or money to travel to the meeting, specifically from foreign countries. It will be helpful for these people to have a forum for exchanging summaries of the important papers that are presented in this meeting.

The objective of this article is to make a humble attempt to summarize some of the important and relevant pavement engineering (specially asphalt/composite pavements) related papers for researchers and practitioners in India. Hopefully, this will help them, and more importantly, y for students, stimulate their interests in the pavement engineering field.