Preparing Winning FLC Award Nominations:

Do’s and Don’ts

The National Transportation Systems Center

Advancing transportation innovation for the public good

U.S. Department of Transportation

Research and Innovative Technology Administration

John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center

Dr. Aviva BrecherFLC representative,USDOT Volpe CenterSeptember 10, 2013

FLC Northeast Conference

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The Volpe Center approach to Tech Transfer (T2)

Unique USDOT/RITA National Lab: Federal RD&T, but “fee for service” and budget neutral About 450 projects annually for federal, state, and international sponsors Most are application and implementation focused Outreach and communication of results is required

Win-win strategy: project design for application Public private partnerships (P3) with users maximize utility,

ensure deployment Rapid safety benefits: Safercar, Saferbus cellphone apps

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FLC-NE 2011Excellence in Technology Transfer Award Safe and Efficient Travel Through Innovation and Partnerships in the 21st

Century (SafeTrip-21): Intelligent Transportation Technology innovation: combine and integrate on mobile platform cellular

phones, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, and the Internet to deliver real-time traffic info to users. Measurably improved safety, mobility, environment and commuters convenience; developed and

field tested 2008-2010 in San Francisco and I-95 corridor. Volpe-led partners: USDOT ITS/JPO; Caltrans; I-95 coalition and U. Md., industry (iCone, Inrix, Parking

Carma, TrafInfo) Demonstrated at ITS World Congress using hybrid bus on NYC streets

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2009 Regional Laboratory Award Nomination: Sustained tech transfer efforts included 3 multi-modal transportation technology

packages with global, national, and regional tech transfer impacts

Citation: In the past year, the Volpe Center has excelled in regional, national, and global technology transfer efforts. Among the Center's accomplishments are: An integrated hardware and software package for remote tracking, communication and display of a ship's

location and identification information for situational awareness. The Maritime Safety and Security Information System- MSSIS, initially developed for US Navy in 2007, was adopted by over 70 nations. It received the prestigious 2008 Innovations in American Government Award from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation

SafeTrip-21- An Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) initiative that leverages the synergy of widely used current technologies to ultimately improve transportation safety and convenience, as well as economic productivity;

The Integrated Vehicle Based Safety System (IVBSS) for both light vehicle and heavy truck platforms that warns drivers of imminent crash situations, to prevent rear-end, lane-change, and road-departure crashes.

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Lessons Learned for Successful Nomination

DO’s: Review 3 years RDT&E lab

portfolio Identify Top 3 demonstrated

and/or deployed technologies Nominate multi-year,

deployment-ready projects with public and private partners (P3)

Allow longer commercialization time-frame (18+ mos.)

Enlist project team & Public-Private Partners (P3) for buy-in

Be short and focused in reply to each question

Include:o graphics o Tech Transfer (T2)

testimonials for the nomination

o handouts on nominated projects (distributed at FLC)

Quantify/characterize public and commercial benefits (safety, economic, time, environmental, size of test-bed, benefit-cost ratio, etc.)

Include publicity in FLC NewsLink or similar peer recognition

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Lessons Learned for Successful Nomination

DON’Ts: Write long nominations:

evaluators are busy Oversell T2 accomplishments:

evaluators could be turned off! Confuse T2 outputs (reports,

results dissemination, and application) with outcomes: evaluators know that “things take time” (T3) for commercialization payoff

Include heavy PR, but let each partner state benefits

Submit the same project to more than one category of award, or resubmit rejected nomination

Assume that winner of FLC regional award can also win FLC: the national competition is “big-league” and fierce!