The Highway Commission Goes to Town

These business units feel that it is necessary to spend from 1% to 4% of their total disbursements for research in order to keep up with the times and with competition. Relatively, our public unit, the State Highway Commission of Indiana, is spending less than 0.25% on the Joint Highway Research Project. The expenditure and size of the permanent staff seem quite small compared to those in private enterprise. Now let us consider the second question, should the Joint Highway Research Project be located at Purdue? It might be urged that the Bureau of Materials and Tests at Indian­ apolis has a large, well-equipped laboratory available for such research. However, Purdue University makes no charge for laboratory facilities furnished to the project. Also avail­ able, without cost to the project, are the consulting services of Dean Potter, Professor Wiley, and other members of the various engineering faculties. It is believed that a more detached viewpoint can be maintained at Purdue. The Re­ search Project is under less direct sales pressure from mate­ rial and equipment representatives at Lafayette than if it were at Indianapolis. It is a great convenience for those of us at Indianapolis to be able to refer propositions of possible merit to a research laboratory at some distance for more leisurely consideration and study. The prestige of Purdue University is behind the findings of the project by reason of its location on the campus. The third question, as to who gets the major benefits from the project, is of direct interest to this Road School audience. It is chiefly of benefit to county highway engineers and those of the State Highway Commission who are responsible for the moderate-cost types of construction and maintenance. Of the 23 separate research undertakings, only 2 or 3 are directly concerned with high-type construction. All others pertain to the use of low-cost materials—even to methods of utilizing local soils in such a way as to get the greatest structural strength possible from them. In closing, it is desirable to point out that the results of the Joint Highway Research Project will be made available to all of you in the form of bulletins of the Engineering Ex­ periment Station of Purdue University.