Small businesses in America are engines of creativity and employment opportunities, but it can sometimes be difficult for small businesses to turn their innovations into reality.

That’s why the U.S. Department of Transportation’s highly competitive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program awards contracts to small businesses to pursue research and development to find solutions to our nation’s biggest transportation challenges.

The SBIR program—administered by Volpe, DOT’s go-to center for innovative, multimodal research—has opened its latest solicitation period and will accept proposals through December 21, 2016.

Below are the priority DOT topics for this SBIR solicitation.

Federal Highway Administration

• Accurate and rapid measurement of adsorption capacity of fly ash in concrete mixtures
• Rapid assessment of air void system in fresh concrete   

Federal Railroad Administration

• Methods for remanufacturing creosote-railroad ties
• Broken rail detection from flashing rear end device
• Resilient wayside structures to reduce severity of passenger equipment collisions and derailments
• Smart phone application for onboard railroad passenger information system

Federal Transit Administration

• Train crowding and information dissemination for transit users

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

• Detection of THC use in drivers

Office of the Secretary of Transportation – Research

• System and supply chain for recycling lithium-ion batteries in the transportation system

Is your small business interested in applying to this SBIR solicitation?

DOT looks forward to working with you to help us ensure the safety and efficiency of transportation in America.

For more about SBIR, read some of our SBIR success stories and learn more about the 17.1 solicitation.