The ISBS looks back on more than a half-century history beginning with 1956, when Dr.-Ing. Wilhelm Mecke (*1907 - †2006) was appointed Professor to the newly established Chair of road construction, earth works and soil engineering. Until then these topics were represented in research and education by the Chair of Urban Development, Urban road construction and Underground Engineering and also by the Chair of Water Resources Management, Hydraulic Soil and Agricultural Engineering. Professor Mecke put his focus on planning and construction of motorways. In 1967 the Chair took over a laboratory in Braunschweig-Querum, which was officially recognized as testing laboratory for road materials in 1972. Since the 1970s there has been increased emphasis on road construction and pavement engineering.
After Mecke’s emeritation Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Wolfgang Arand (*1929 - †2019) was appointed Professor to the now renamed Chair of Road Engineering and Earth Works. He began a re-orientation of the institute’s research activities towards measuring asphalt properties as building material for road construction. This work led to the development of new rational asphalt testing method (instead of the conventional ones) thus allowing reliable predictions of the performance of asphalt mixtures. Along with the change of the research focal points there was also a fundamental change in the content and structure of lectures. In 1981 the laboratory moved from Braunschweig-Querum into a new building in Beethovenstraße.
In 1994, Prof Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rolf Leutner (*1941 - †2012) succeeded Wolfgang Arand as Head of the Institute. Under his era over two dozen major research projects were carried out mainly dealing with asphalt performance. On Oct 1st, 2006 Rolf Leutner officially retired, but remained temporarily in office until his position was refilled.
Since March 2008 Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. techn. Michael P. Wistuba is head of the institute, the "Institut für Straßenwesen" (ISBS) as it is now known. Prof. Wistuba studied civil engineering at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, where he graduated in 1998. He worked as Research Assistant at the Institute for Road construction and maintenance where he obtained his Ph.D. in technical sciences. After a post-doc-year at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne in the french-speaking part of Switzerland he returned back to Vienna and assisted in establishing the Christian Doppler Laboratory for performance-based Optimization of Flexible Road Pavements.
In September 2010 the ISBS moved to new premises in the Beethovenstraße 51 b at the TU Braunschweig Campus Ost after long-term planning and construction. Thus the offices and the laboratory are under the same roof for the first time in the 50-year old history of the institute.