AASHTO Unveils Technology Procurement Survey Results

August 14, 2026

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recently unveiled the results of a nationwide survey that examined the issues state departments of transportation face in accelerating the acquisition and deployment of various information technology or IT systems.

[Above image by AASHTO]

Conducted by the AASHTO Committee on Transportation System Operations or CTSO, the 50-plus page survey – entitled the “CTSO Technology & Operations Procurement Acceleration Survey” – garnered responses from 51 of AASHTO’s 52 members and delves into the technology and operations procurement challenges faced by state DOTs and how to improve them.

Ahnaf Morshed. Photo by AASHTO.

Some of the findings from the AASHTO CTSO survey include:

  • More than 85 percent of state DOTs have policies or requirements that restrict or add processes to procurement of advanced technologies.
  • In emergency or incident response situations, more than half of all DOTs use existing on-hand inventory or pre-positioned IT equipment when they need IT equipment.
  • Some 57 percent of state DOTs would characterize their overall IT and technology procurement process as “complex” or “very complex.”
  • At least 63 percent of agencies have experienced challenges applying traditional procurement frameworks to IT technology procurements.

Ahnaf Morshed – AASHTO’s program manager for transportation systems management and operations or TSMO – noted that, in the main, state DOTs responding to the survey seek to share “best practices” regarding technology procurement so they can take more immediate advantage of rapidly evolving technologies.

“State DOTs want a way to share tips on expediting the procurement process and to see if there are ways to standardize them,” he explained to the AASHTO Journal. “States are very connected to each other but in the procurement realm, not so much; their procurement processes are different.”

Yet Morshed stressed that the survey was “not all about negatives” either. “Many state DOTs have developed mechanisms to streamline their procurement processes in order to match the speed of technology development,” he said. “And there is a desire among state DOTs to share them in a more formalized framework.”

To read the executive summary of this survey, click here.

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