State Department of Transportation sUAS Program Development and Operational Deployment

摘要

Over the past several years small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) have gained popularity in the private sector. Recent studies have shown an increasing interest from state DOTs in the U.S. for the use of drone technology. However, most of the studies did not fully investigate the depth of program integration or application. This study combines the findings of recent studies to identify state DOTs with the most extensive sUAS operational experience. The drone champions for the six states identified, were interviewed to gain substantive insight regarding program initiation and organization, the spectrum of agency use, perceived benefits, and the DOT’s involvement with industry drone taskforces. The findings are that adoption of drone technology by state DOTs, even those with broad operational experience, is in an ‘early’ stage. Program structure for most DOTs is rather ‘loose’ and the extent of operational deployment for each of the drone applications was limited. There remains considerable interest in drone technology and agencies were optimistic concerning the impact that drones could have in their DOT.