AASHTO Journal - FHWA Initiates Seventh Round of EDC Program

The Federal Highway Administration is now seeking entries for the seventh round of its ‘Every Day Counts’ or EDC program – an initiative that builds on collaborations with state, local, tribal, industry partners, and the public to identify proven, market-ready, yet underutilized transportation processes or technologies. Applications are due by April 11.

[Above graphic by the FHWA]

Every two years, FHWA works with state transportation departments, local governments, tribes, private industry, and other stakeholders to identify a new collection of innovations that merit accelerated investment and deployment.

Proven innovations promoted through EDC help generate greater transportation efficiencies at the state and local levels – saving time, money and resources that can be used to deliver more projects.

After selecting EDC innovations, transportation leaders from across the country gather at a virtual summit to discuss and identify opportunities implementing the innovations that best fit the needs of their respective state’s transportation program.

Following the summit, states finalize their selection of innovations, establish performance goals for the level of implementation and adoption over the upcoming two-year cycle, and begin to implement the innovations with the support and assistance of the technical teams established for each innovation.

Since the program’s inception in 2009, FHWA said each state has used 20 or more of the 52 innovations promoted through EDC – with some states adopting more than 45 of them.

For the seventh round of the program, known as EDC-7, one measure of the success will be the number of states that commit to implementing innovations that support key priorities such as equity, safety, economic growth, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, or workforce development.

In addition, FHWA seeks feedback on user experiences with high-value innovations described in the “Innovations of Interest” and tentatively identified for accelerated deployment.