In an economic sector involving a strong mutual dependence of predominantly governmental agencies who are the owners of our pavement infrastructure and contractors who traditionally implement agency desires to construction and maintain that infrastructure, it is clear that the development of new and innovative design and construction takes place in a somewhat different manner than they do in a regular consumer market. An entrepreneur in a free consumer market continuously seeks new products and services and will influence the consumer to buy those new products and services through marketing. Many factors other than just technical functionality play a role in this. In addition to functionality, the value of perception, profiling and status are components that are factored in when a consumer decides to purchase a new product. The transportation sector functions very differently that this entrepreneur/consumer model. Road users typically have very little interaction with the contractors that build or maintain our roadway infrastructure and roadway users have very little to no effect on the agency’s procurement processes. Agency contract regulations and procedures typically act to minimize innovation as the contracting practices of many agencies make the introduction of innovation difficult. Many agencies cannot sole source a particular contractor or supplier without significant effort which tends to reduce the environment of innovation. Further, roadway agencies often focus on the lowest price at a quality level established in advance. This paper highlights the need for innovation and examines international and domestic agency polices and procedures that can make innovation implementation successful. The paper outlines changes in procurement processes, construction and maintenance procedures, education and risk necessary to implement new and innovative design and construction process that can cost-effectively extend the service life of our infrastructure and minimize the impact of construction on the road users.
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