Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Texas A&M Transportation Institute, a state-controlled research division of the Texas A&M University System housed within the 1862 Land Grant College, delivers transportation safety research, infrastructure assessment, and technical services to federal agencies primarily as a prime contractor (74% of recent awards) on full-and-open contracts with no set-aside designation. TTI is based in College Station, Texas, and competes across the Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce, and defense research establishments without SBA certifications.

TTI's federal footprint concentrates overwhelmingly in surface transportation research. The Federal Highway Administration accounts for 120 of 179 awards covered in the concentration data, representing $205 million in combined potential value—roughly 68% of TTI's recent federal portfolio. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ranks second with 29 awards valued at $60 million, followed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with 11 awards at $20.5 million and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration with 6 awards at $11.7 million. These five agencies account for 76% of award count and 100% of combined potential value. TTI serves 30 distinct federal agencies across its portfolio, but customer concentration is decidedly weighted toward surface-transportation-focused DOT missions.

TTI holds positions on the FHWA Highway Research and Development Services (HRDS) Technical Support Services IDIQ, a $33 million multiple-award contract running through September 2027, with recent task orders spanning pedestrian safety, crash modification factor development, roundabout operations analysis, roadside hardware compliance testing, and work-zone safety. The institute also holds a single-award Indefinite Delivery contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration valued at $5.6 million through September 2031 to operate the Southern Regional Weather Records Center, delivering climate monitoring and data analysis products to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. Representative prime contracts include a $603 thousand firm-fixed-price definitive contract from the Federal Highway Administration for structural assessment of highway tunnels during fire events (ultimate completion September 2031), a $4.8 million delivery order from NOAA for regional long-term weather records products and services (September 2031), a $734 thousand FHWA exploratory advanced research contract on digital-twin-enabled safety analysis for mixed traffic (September 2026), and a $1.27 million cost-plus-fixed-fee task order from FHWA for developing crash modification factors across multiple safety domains (October 2026).

TTI's grant footprint centers on motor-carrier and pedestrian safety, workforce development, and climate resilience. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has awarded nine project grants under CFDA 20.237 (Motor Carrier Safety Assistance High Priority Activities) since September 2024, totaling approximately $3.8 million combined, supporting research on commercial motor vehicle crash prediction using telematics, work-zone safety, young driver peer-to-peer education expansion, agricultural-worker transportation safety, large-truck data analysis using human factors classification systems, and truck parking characterization. The National Institute of Standards and Technology awarded a $4.5 million project grant (CFDA 11.617, Congressionally-Identified Projects) on October 1, 2024, for the 21st Century Mobility Testbed at the Texas A&M-RELLIS Campus, focused on connected and automated vehicle research and integrated transportation management hub development. The Federal Highway Administration issued a $576 thousand project grant for work-zone safety telematics analysis (September 2024) and a cooperative agreement on vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communications interoperability (September 2024). TTI serves as a sub-recipient on multiple federal grants administered through the National Academy of Sciences, University of Arkansas, the University of Oklahoma, and Texas A&M University proper, supporting research on highway safety manual development, bridge technology, transportation equity, climate infrastructure resilience, and multimodal maritime transportation.

Activity grew substantially in 2024 with 39 awards, then moderated to 17 awards in 2026 year-to-date. Eight awards with potential value of $2.9 million reach ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months, presenting recompete exposure primarily within the FHWA HRDS IDIQ and NOAA weather records vehicles. SCI-reported invoicing across service contracts above the $150,000 threshold totaled $12.5 million over FY2022–FY2025 (prime records only), with FY2025 showing $3.7 million invoiced against 8.0 FTEs. Median government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime contracts run approximately $171.90/hr, with senior labor reaching $551/hr. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors perform an average of 21% of contractor hours, with 26 named subcontractors reported across the portfolio, indicating TTI builds a significant portion of delivery internally but regularly augments with specialized subs for specialized research and technical support.

TTI subcontracts to prime contractors including ICF Incorporated (five sub awards covering FHWA freight mobility dashboard support, truck parking data, work-zone decision support toolkits, and urban congestion reporting), Eastern Research Group Inc. (mobile source emissions testing and air-quality impact assessment for EPA and FHWA), Texas State University (pedestrian-trespass behavior and railroad safety research), and the University of Maryland (national performance management research dataset technical support). The institute also receives sub-awards from Rutgers University, the National Academy of Sciences, and the University of Arkansas as part of larger federal research consortia. Sub-award distribution suggests TTI functions as a strategic research partner for federal data, safety analysis, and technical-service primes rather than a feeder vendor; subcontractor relationships are thematic and capability-focused rather than volume-oriented.

NAICS 541990 (All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services) dominates TTI's work at 49 awards, with secondary strength in Administrative Management Consulting Services (19 awards) and Research and Development in Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (9 awards). PSC coding confirms transportation research and engineering-support concentration, with the majority of task orders classified under R&D categories (Other Research and Development, Transportation R&D Services, Transportation Highways/Roads/Bridges Basic Research) and Support–Professional (Engineering/Technical). TTI does not engage set-aside programs and competes only under full-and-open procurement rules, positioning it as a mainstream federal research contractor rather than a targeted set-aside resource for small or disadvantaged vendors.