Workforce and Proximity to Automakers Create a Transportation Manufacturing Hub
From passenger cars and heavy trucks to rail cars and more, products made in the Roanoke Region are keeping America rolling. Transportation manufacturing is a strong and growing industry cluster with more than 5,100 people employed in 25 firms throughout the region. Here are just a few reasons why:
Strategic Advantages
- Our excellent market access puts companies within a day’s drive of automakers to the Northwest, West, and South.
- Transportation companies that relocated to the Roanoke Region in the 1990s have since expanded.
- Products manufactured here include ignition coils and systems, aerial cranes, rail equipment, clutch disc plates, tires, and axles.
- The area sees more than 1,500 engineering graduates annually, most from nationally recognized Virginia Tech.
- Local, specialized training programs include intensive welding.
5,100
Workers
25
Companies
1,500
Engineering Graduates
Virginia Tech Capabilities and Centers of Excellence
Virginia Tech is an internationally renowned research institute training skilled engineers and leading innovative technology into the future. Research programs provide important research for transportation-related manufacturing. In the Roanoke Region, you’ll have a front-row seat to the latest innovation and opportunity to be an early adopter of revolutionary tech.
- Virginia Tech Transportation Institute: Largest university-level research center in the region and the top engineering school in the state. Its transportation research is aimed at saving lives, time, and money in the transportation field.
- Virginia Smart Road: 2.2 -mile, full-scale, closed test-bed research facility. Features weather-making capabilities, variable-lighting test bed, pavement markings, and an on-site data acquisition system.
- Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Lab: Research focus includes vehicle dynamics, noise, and vibration problems.
- Center for Automotive Fuel Cell Systems: Research ranges from modeling to actual vehicle construction and testing.
We’re here to help
The Roanoke Regional Partnership serves as the point of contact for businesses looking to relocate and expand. We are connectors who match your needs and questions with the resources and answers. We’re a one-stop-shop for learning, evaluating, and connecting with the Alleghany, Botetourt, Franklin, and Roanoke counties, cities of Covington, Roanoke, and Salem, and the town of Vinton.
Let us help you find the right site or building for companies, create custom research for your business decision, and connect you with the people and services that will help you see why the Roanoke Region is the right place.