The University of Nebraska-Lincoln serves as headquarters and lead institution for the Mid-America Transportation Center, a consortium that focuses on safe, efficient and effective transportation in the four-state region of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. Rural roadways, urban traffic and major freight corridors are among the issues studied.
Nebraska also is home to the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, a research center that focuses on highway design and safety. That facility developed barriers in use at NASCAR race tracks and roadside barriers in use on highways across the U.S. As electric vehicles gain greater adoption, engineers at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility now are working to design roadside barriers for EVS. The facility recently was awarded a grant from the Department of Defense to develop barriers to protect military bases from ramming by vehicles.