The Florida Transportation Technology Transfer (T2) Center is part of the University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI), located in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering at the University of Florida. Since 1984, the UFTI-T2 Center has provided workforce development and training, technical assistance, and technology transfer services to national, state, and local transportation and safety partners, and the general public.
Our Mission: To facilitate the transfer of multidisciplinary research and technology outcomes to improve the skills and knowledge for the transportation workforce and its partners.
Our Vision: To be an internationally recognized leader in transportation training and outreach engaging public, private, academic, and non-profit sectors and facilitating the transfer of multidisciplinary research to practice.
The Center’s technology transfer activities focus on Training, Safety Resources, and Technical Services.
What is Technology Transfer?
Researchers in all fields, including transportation, are working all the time to develop a deeper understanding of the world around us. They produce new knowledge and new, better methods that benefit us in our everyday lives. Technology transfer is way that new knowledge and methods developed in research labs are delivered to the people who can put them into everyday use. Technology transfer agencies develop relationships with clients to understand their needs and help assure the benefits of a new technology. Tech transfer helps develop resources to implement the new technology and assists with training the workforce for safe and effective application of the new technology.
UFTI-T2 Center works closely with researchers around the nation to transfer knowledge to stakeholders who may benefit from the completed work. UFTI-T2 is an expert at disseminating transportation research to professionals in the field and advocacy groups through training programs, safety resource centers, and transportation research dissemination.
For example, a few years ago, researchers developed the Safety Shoe, which pavers can use to taper the edge of a roadway. How does this help? Often when a vehicle leaves the road – perhaps because the driver fell asleep or swerved to avoid an obstacle – the drop-off at the edge of many roads is a few inches, and drivers must overcorrect to get back on the highway. This can send them into the opposing lane or off the road on the opposite side, resulting in serious crashes. The Safety Edge makes it easy to get back on the roadway, preventing overcorrection, and saving lives. Improvements like this are coming out of research labs every day, and those of us who work in transportation technology transfer are working hard to get them to the right people so that our roads will be safer to drive.
Transportation Training
UFTI-T2 Center provides training to transportation professionals in various public and private careers such as: oversized load pilots, traffic maintenance crews, designers, engineers, public officials, field personnel, roadway construction supervisors, commercial motor carriers, pilot escort vehicle operators, temporary traffic control designers, traffic control flagmen, consultants, contractors, and traffic signals maintenance crews.