Aashto Standards
Violet Mcdow
AASHTO Accreditation requires legally accessed standards, either hardcopy or electronic.
AASHTO standards can be purchased through the AASHTO Store. AASHTO provides accredited laboratories with an exclusive discount code to purchase the Materials Standards at the discounted AASHTO member price.For more information on this exclusive discount, AASHTO Accredited laboratories may contact Kimberly Swanson, Communications Manager, AASHTO re:source, via email at kswa...@aashtoresource.org.
American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is a nonprofit association that represents highway and transportation departments across the nation and serves as a liaison between State departments of transportation and the Federal government. AASHTO works to educate the public and key decision makers about the critical role that transportation plays in securing a good quality of life and sound economy for our nation, by setting design and installation standards, providing guidance and resources, and developing outreach materials.
AASHTO's Roadside Design Guide
presents a synthesis of current information and operating practices related to roadside safety and focuses on safety treatments that can minimize the likelihood of serious injuries when a motorist leaves the roadway.
Established by the AASHTO Board of Directors in 2009, the primary function of the AASHTO Material Guidelines technical service program is to support the development of new standards, as well as revisions and updates to existing standards. These specifications are published in the AASHTO Standard Specifications for Transportation Materials and Methods of Sampling and Testing publication (also referred to as the Materials Book), a critical resource for maintaining the quality and health of our transportation infrastructure. Many of the materials used in transportation construction projects are tested for quality and acceptance according to AASHTO standards and specifications that are published in the Materials Book. The value of this publication comes from the expertise and knowledge of the Committee of Materials and Pavements (COMP) members.
In addition, each state that contributes to the AASHTO Material Guidelines receives the opportunity to be awarded scholarships for up to two individuals to attend the COMP annual meeting to ensure that each member department maintains their voice in the development of the materials specifications. This scholarship includes reimbursement for travel and registration costs associated with attending the annual meeting.
Developed by the AASHTO Committee on Materials and Pavements, these standards contain specifications, recommended practices, test methods, and provisional standards commonly used in the construction of highway facilities.
The 2023 edition of the Materials Standards contains a total of 556 standards and includes four new and 100 revised standards. (Click here to download the Summary of 2023 New and Revised Materials Standards.)
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) welcomes the republication in whole or in part of any original content from The AASHTO Journal with proper attribution to the association and publication. This includes a link to direct visitors to the AASHTO Journal website.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is a standards setting body which publishes specifications, test protocols, and guidelines that are used in highway design and construction throughout the United States. Despite its name, the association represents not only highways but air, rail, water, and public transportation as well.[6]
The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) was founded on December 12, 1914.[7] Its name was changed to American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials on November 13, 1973. The name change reflects a broadened scope to cover all modes of transportation, although most of its activities are still specific to highways.
The United States Department of Transportation, some U.S. cities, counties, and toll-road operators, most Canadian provinces as well as the Hong Kong Highways Department, the Turkish Ministry of Public Works and Settlement, and the Nigerian Association of Public Highway and Transportation Officials have non-voting associate memberships.[6]
In addition to its publications, AASHTO performs or cooperates in research projects. One such project is the AASHTO Road Test, which is a primary source of data used when considering transport policies and the structural design of roads. Much of AASHTO's current research is performed by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) which is administered by the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a division of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
AASHTO re:source, formerly the AASHTO Materials Reference Laboratory (AMRL), accredits laboratories. Accreditation is often required to submit test results to state DOTs. For example, a contract for the construction of a highway bridge may require a minimum compressive strength for the concrete used. The contract will specify AASHTO Test Designation T 22, "Compressive Strength of Cylindrical Concrete Specimens," as the means of determining compressive strength. The laboratory performing T 22 will be required to be accredited in that test.
This table summarizes the standards sets available at the Libraries. If you need a standard outside of these collections, request it, and we will look into purchasing a copy. If you have any questions about standards, contact the librarians at the bottom of this page, and we'd be happy to help!
Data dictionaries and message sets are essential components in the operation of computer-based intelligent transportation systems (ITS). Data dictionaries provide the basic definitions, generally described as data elements (DEs), that make up the specific content of a message used to convey information among ITS systems. In a simple analogy, messages are the sentences and DEs are the individual words. A message set provides a series or set of individual messages, established in a strict format, for exchanging information on a given topic. Thus, an agreed-upon data dictionary and message set with unambiguous definitions are essential to exchange information between, for example, traffic management centers (TMCs) or between a traffic management center (TMC) and other ITS centers and/or suppliers of traffic-related information.
Message sets and data dictionaries work in conjunction with another type of standard that provides the actual communications protocols. Protocol standards describe how messages are encoded for transmission and then transmitted and received by other systems.
The data dictionary and messages set standard, AASHTO-ITE TM 2.1, Standards for Traffic Management Center-to-Center Communications, was developed for ITS systems that manage traffic. (The data dictionary standard, AASHTO-ITE TM 1.03, Traffic Management Data Dictionary (TMDD), and its companion message set standard AASHTO-ITE TM 2.01, Message Set for External Traffic Management Center Communications, were combined into the single standard, AASHTO-ITE TM 2.1, Standards for Traffic Management Center-to-Center Communications, which was updated to version 3.0 in November 2008.) These data elements and message sets were developed as a joint AASHTO-ITE effort under the oversight of a national steering committee composed of formal representatives of both organizations. More information concerning this standard can be found at -resources/standards/tmdd/.
The AASHTO-ITE TM 3.0, Standards for Traffic Management Center-to-Center Communications standard is comprised of two volumes: Volume 1: Concept of Operations and Requirements and Volume 2: Design Content. The standard is intended to be independent of the underlying communications protocols used to carry the messages it defines.
The Concept of Operations and Requirements document defines the user needs addressed by the standard, and the functional requirements necessary to meet those needs. It defines the operational environment for traffic management, and the operations required to realize those needs in an operating center.
The Design Content document defines the design content that realizes the functional requirements, and includes dialogs, messages, data frames, data elements and object classes. Collectively these constructs support the data exchange within and among traffic management systems. Dialogs are modeled as Universal Markup Language (UML) sequence diagrams. Messages, data frames and data elements are defined using both ASN.1 and XML. Object classes are defined in ASN.1 only. Altogether, this document defines the schema of all traffic management communications necessary to implement any of the needs defined in Volume 1.
This standard should be used by transportation, traffic, and system engineers involved with the design, specification, procurement, installation, operation, and maintenance of traffic management systems. ITS system software designers and application developers should find this standard especially relevant to their efforts.
The traffic management functional area data dictionary (as distinguished from an application-specific data dictionary) provides a national standard for an agreed-upon set of data elements(DE) traffic management systems. Similarly, the message set provides a national standard for messages involving traffic operations. The data dictionary and message set become the basis for design and implementation of traffic management communications. Typically, these standards will be implemented in an Applications Program Interface (API) allowing communication to and from the traffic management center or application. Thus, the data dictionary and message set defined in this standard are intended to act as the core set of DEs and the core sets of messages, respectively, that will be used by all ITS-based traffic management systems. Both the data dictionary and message set may be augmented in specific applications as necessary to support additional local functions or conventions not contained in the standards.
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