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Career Description

Develop plans for surface transportation projects, according to established engineering standards and state or federal construction policy. Prepare designs, specifications, or estimates for transportation facilities. Plan modifications of existing streets, highways, or freeways to improve traffic flow.

What Job Titles Transportation Engineers Might Have

• Project Manager
• Traffic Operations Engineer
• Transportation Engineer

What Transportation Engineers Do

• Design or prepare plans for new transportation systems or parts of systems, such as airports, commuter trains, highways, streets, bridges, drainage structures, or roadway lighting.
• Investigate traffic problems and recommend methods to improve traffic flow or safety.
• Check construction plans, design calculations, or cost estimations to ensure completeness, accuracy, or conformity to engineering standards or practices.
• Prepare administrative, technical, or statistical reports on traffic-operation matters, such as accidents, safety measures, or pedestrian volume or practices.
• Prepare project budgets, schedules, or specifications for labor or materials.
• Evaluate traffic control devices or lighting systems to determine need for modification or expansion.
• Evaluate transportation systems or traffic control devices or lighting systems to determine need for modification or expansion.
• Estimate transportation project costs.
• Model transportation scenarios to evaluate the impacts of activities such as new development or to identify possible solutions to transportation problems.
• Confer with contractors, utility companies, or government agencies to discuss plans, specifications, or work schedules.
• Plan alteration or modification of existing transportation structures to improve safety or function.
• Participate in contract bidding, negotiation, or administration.
• Review development plans to determine potential traffic impact.
• Inspect completed transportation projects to ensure safety or compliance with applicable standards or regulations.
• Present data, maps, or other information at construction-related public hearings or meetings.
• Analyze environmental impact statements for transportation projects.
• Prepare final project layout drawings that include details such as stress calculations.
• Supervise the maintenance or repair of transportation systems or system components.

What Transportation Engineers Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Mathematical Reasoning - The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

What Transportation Engineers Should Be Interested In

• Realistic - Realistic occupations frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They often deal with plants, animals, and real-world materials like wood, tools, and machinery. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.
• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

What Transportation Engineers Need to Learn

• Engineering and Technology - Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
• Transportation - Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
• Design - Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Building and Construction - Knowledge of materials, methods, and the tools involved in the construction or repair of houses, buildings, or other structures such as highways and roads.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Physics - Knowledge and prediction of physical principles, laws, their interrelationships, and applications to understanding fluid, material, and atmospheric dynamics, and mechanical, electrical, atomic and sub- atomic structures and processes.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Public Safety and Security - Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.