Part of the airport in Lewistown, Montana has been closed for several years to air traffic. In 2003, the Airport Authority and Fergus County Commissioners asked the Western Transportation Institute (WTI) at Montana State University to look at the site and determine whether it could be used for transportation research and testing. WTI and the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) were able to identify many projects that had the potential to improve transportation not only in Montana, but also in other cold and rural regions. The Lewistown Airport Cold Region Rural Transportation Research Facility will allow researchers to conduct state-of-the-art, high quality research and testing on surface transportation issues. The facility allows research to be conducted in a safe, controlled environment that poses no disruption or risk to the traveling public. MDT is reconstructing portions of the old runways so that researchers can study a wide variety of topics related to design and maintenance of roadways, as well as driver behavior under varying weather conditions. Two projects are already underway at the facility:• For the Road-Animal Detection System Test bed project, WTI is evaluating several systems by different vendors to compare how well they detect the presence of animals near a roadway.• The Effects of Defensive Vehicle Handling Training on Novice Driver Safety project will provide a group of newly licensed drivers with an advanced defensive vehicle handling course at the Lewistown facility. The facility is drawing interest and support from other organizations around the country and around the world. The purpose of this project is to conduct initial development tasks that will create a prioritized, funded research program for the facility, and establish Montana as a national and international leader in cold region rural transportation research.