BATON ROUGE – LSU will lead a 'consortium of universities' to establish a regional center to study how new technologies can be used to make transportation systems smarter.

LSU official announced that the Transportation Consortium of South-Central States, (Tran-SET), will receive $2,470,600 for the current fiscal year.

“LSU is proud to lend out expertise in transportation and innovation to help solve our state’s transportation issues,” LSU President F. King Alexander said.

According to LSU, Congressman Garret Graves laid the groundwork for the Tran-SET by negotiating the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act in 2015. The FAST Act provides funding for research and testing new technology to improve transportation.

“Technology has made things that were impossible 20 years ago commonplace,” Graves said. “We need to leverage those capabilities to make our transportation systems smarter, our communities faster and the flow of traffic smoother.”

For more information about the grant, click here.