Northeast Center of Excellence for Pavement Technology

The Northeast Center of Excellence for Pavement Technology (NECEPT) is the Northeast Regional Superpave Center, housed at the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute. The primary mission of NECEPT is to provide training, research and technical leadership and assistance to ensure that the promise of more durable pavements becomes a reality. NECEPT has functioned as a very useful resource for research and outreach activities in the area of pavements and materials and has been an important source of hands-on training for engineers and technicians at a local and national level. The center is designed to be flexible and responsive to the needs of state highway agencies and the pavement industry. Since its inception, NECEPT has provided training for bituminous field and plant technician certification to approximately 800 technicians and engineers annually under the PennDOT certification program. As NECEPT begins its twentieth year of service, more than 16,000 technicians have been certified under the bituminous certification program. NECEPT uses state-of-the-art asphalt materials and testing facilities to perform all of the conventional and specialized binder and mixture tests.