The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) was a U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation center funded by the FAST Act, MAP21, and SAFETEA-LU. Housed at Portland State University until the center's retirement in 2024, NITC was a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC). This Portland State-led research partnership includes the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah, University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington.

The center's research priority was improving the mobility of people and goods.

Research Impacts

See all Final Reports from the NITC Program here.

With three successive US DOT university transportation center (UTC) grants, NITC maintained a focus on creating sustainable, livable, and equitable communities through the federal research priority of improving mobility of people and goods. Read about NITC's research impacts, including a set of literature reviews from more than a decade of NITC research covering some of the most important challenges facing transportation agencies and policymakers. 

Transportation Education

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities was committed to teaching students the latest in advancing innovative, safe, and equitable  multimodal transportation systems. Our education projects focused on developing innovative new curriculum to be tested and shared with university and K-12 faculty. Review the transportation curriculum created by the NITC program.

History of the NITC Program

Portland State University, the University of Oregon, and the Oregon Institute of Technology jointly formed the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium, or OTREC, in 2005 – one of the first national university transportation centers to be designated and funded by the U.S. DOT. The partnership outgrew Oregon’s borders to welcome the University of Utah in 2012, adopting the NITC name, and again in 2013 with the addition of the University of South Florida. The NITC program continued its national expansion through the University of Arizona and the University of Texas at Arlington and in late 2016 successfully competed for five years of funding as one of five national centers in the U.S under the FAST Act. At the end of 2024, the research center came to a close, but its research is still making its impact felt around the country.