In January, UWM’s Institute for Physical Infrastructure and Transportation (IPIT) received two research awards from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
Through these awards, IPIT will review and evaluate two programs that WisDOT carries out under state or federal rules; one program is meant to streamline highway projects, the other aims to increase disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE) participation in and success rate of winning highway project contracts.
Both projects will be conducted by Xiao Qin, IPIT’s director and professor of civil & environmental engineering and his colleagues at the institute.
Evaluate Wis-DOT’s Design-Build program
A UWM team will conduct a third-party evaluation of Wis-DOT’s recently launched Design-Build program. The program streamlines highway improvement projects by bringing together engineering and construction industries at the outset, with the goals of reducing costs, accelerating project delivery, and enhancing synergy, innovation and communication.
The co-PIs on this project are Mark Gottlieb, IPIT’s associate director, and Scott Solverson, a research scientist with IPIT.
The team will review programs in other states, national best practices, and the processes WisDOT uses to select Design-Build projects. Qin says that the final report will include recommendations for process improvement and criteria with which to evaluate the program.
WisDOT awarded $78,228 for this one-year study.
Review Wis-DOT’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program
WisDOT carries out the federal government’s DBE program, which provides minorities, women and other eligible small businesses with opportunities to participate in highway, transit and airport contracts that are federally or state funded. The intent of the program is to improve the competitiveness of DBEs and increase their participation in Wisconsin’s highway projects.
UWM researchers will evaluate WisDOT’s DBE. Among the tasks: identify barriers to firms’ participation and methods to remove them; make recommendations to maximize DBE participation and its success rate.
Qin says the team will also recommend a DBE pilot training program to help set directions for developing and implementing a unique and robust DBE pilot training program in Wisconsin.
The PI on this project is Al Ghorbanpoor, emeritus professor, civil & environmental engineering and founding director of IPIT; co-PIs are Steve Trick, research scientist with IPIT, and Qin.
WisDOT awarded $138,178 for this 18-month study.