: Analysis

Encouraging Undergraduate and Graduate Students to Explore a Career in Pavement Engineering.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is pleased to announce the LTIP Student Data Analysis Contest, designed to encourage university students to use pavement performance data to study the various factors affecting pavement lifecycles, and to develop a technical paper to document their research.

Papers must use LTPP InfoPave™ to investigate a topic that advances pavement performance. Some suggested topics include, “Evaluate a Question or Concern for a Region or State,” “Visualization of Performance Data,” and “Development of Models to Predict Future Condition Using the LTPP Pavement Condition and Traffic Data.”

Papers should use the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB’s) formatting requirements as follows:

• File Format: PDF.
• All papers must be submitted in English.
• Include a title page with title, authors, affiliations, and word count.
• Include all coauthor names, affiliations, and email addresses.
• Tables and figures should be embedded in the text, near the text that discusses the item.
• 8.5x11 page with normal margins.
• The title should have the first letter of each word capitalized, except for conjunctions, prepositions, and articles.
• Font: Times Roman font, 10 pt size or larger.
• Single spaced.
• Line numbers are required (restart numbering on each page).
• Page numbers are required.
• Manuscript Length: The length of each paper, including the abstract, text, acknowledgments, references, and tables, must not exceed 7,500 words. Each table counts as 250 words. Papers not meeting this requirement may be withdrawn from the peer review process at any time. Abstract (250 words max).
• References should be numbered and called out in numerical order in the text.

View the sample paper taken from TRB. Please note that while the sample paper refers to TRB in the title, this is not a TRB paper. This is a FHWA-sponsored contest. Contestants are to submit papers by email to LTIPStudentContest@dot.gov by Friday, July 29, 2022, 11:59 pm ET. 

We look forward to your participation in this year’s contest. For more information, contact Deborah Walker at 202–493–3068 or deborah.walker@dot.gov.

The LTIP Student Data Analysis Contest is designed to encourage students to use the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Web portal, LTPP InfoPave^TM or the Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) Web portal, InfoBridge^TM to address specific infrastructure issues or challenges. The LTPP program has had a long tradition of holding a student contest and this was the inaugural year for the LTBP program student contest.