Transportation engineer here with 2.5 years experience in transportation and 1.5 years in structural. I also have my PE.
I am interested in transitioning from transportation to traffic engineering. I do not enjoy spending +8 hours a day in CAD, and am not particularly interested or curious about transportation design, E&S, and drainage.
I know it is not ideal to move around so much - but I also am committed to finding a job/area of civil engineering which I enjoy doing and get excited about a future in. I am willing to sacrifice being a little behind my peers in a position I want to be in vs. staying in one that I dread.
My company has both traffic and transportation groups. I had a few one-on-one lunches with our traffic team to learn more about their projects, daily tasks, etc. and it all sounds so exciting. I would have to learn SYNCHRO/Vissim, but I am up for the challenge.
I worry I maybe just hate civil engineering lmao.
So here I am brain dumping my thoughts …. I am curious if anyone has had a similar journey, cares to share more about their role in traffic engineering, or really just any words of advice for a stuck feeling engineer…
Hey all, I’m currently going into the final year of my Civil Engineering degree, and I’m working an internship doing Traffic Engineering. I like what I do, but I’ve always liked the ideas of both Structural and Transportation Engineering, something that this career path won’t allow me to pursue. Is there anyone that possibly has experience in both that can offer any insight into what they enjoyed more or how they made a choice between the two? Thanks.
Hi r/civilengineering!
Long story short, I am a new licensed PE at a consulting firm, where I have mostly worked on the project management and design-side of small to midsized road, signal, and path projects for the DOT and various municipalities. As part of my firm’s employee development initiative, I have been selected amongst others to participate in a communication training program, where we each must write an article on a topic of our choice for publication in a journal (also of our choice, I’m leaning toward ITE Journal) and then give a presentation on it to the company Board.
Unfortunately at this point in my career, I feel like I know a little about a lot of technical topics but very little about any single topic; so I want to choose the “right” interesting topic now knowing I will have to remain motivated/engaged throughout to put in necessary research and study time. My broad interest at this point include: complete streets, pedestrians/bicyclists, funding, and energy/environment; but I’m pretty open/interested in many things.
What are some “cutting-edge” technologies or industry trends in transportation/traffic engineering that would make good article topics?
Is there room for innovation in this field that civil engineers can work ok on? Or is does it all lie in tech?
Also is it normal for transportation engineers to follow the P.E. route or are there any alternatives?
Of all the facets involved in traffic engineering, why is it that the traffic portion (lane usage, modeling, traffic control, etc) so often turns in to a bro-match among the transportation engineers at the DOT? The same engineers who have bo opinion on signals or ITS will come early and stay late to prove their point about a turn lane.
Edit: I couldn’t find a non-offensive gender neutral noun to use…so I just went with bro-match. If anyone knows a tactful, professional way to say $&@&$ing contest, please share :)
Before I start, I should preface this by saying that I've got a Mechanical Engineering background and would really enjoy working on public projects.
I've been offered the opportunity in a transportation engineering role doing things like traffic impact assessments, intersection designs and transport modelling. I've just got a few questions about the industry in general.
1.Transportation Engineering is a branch of Civil Engineering but how much of it is traditional "civil engineering"? E.g. concepts like ∑F=0, statics and building design that you learn in your first few years at university.
2.How much prerequisite knowledge of Civil Engineering would you need to work in this role? Would I struggle with the learning curve coming from ME? Have you seen any MEs work in this industry?
3.Job prospects in the future. How will automation affect transport engineers and will there always be a demand for it?
Some examples of my key area of interest, traffic flow micro-simulation, and what can be achieved:
Please correct me if I am wrong. I think most Transportation/Traffic engineers can work from home comfortably for at least 50% of the time. I have heard some firms are asking all of their staff to return to office 100%. What are your thoughts on this?
Also, please share your employer's plan on returning to office. Thank you!
New to this sub and have enjoyed it and these posts. Created an account to do my own DITL. Sorry in advance if it’s too long.
Background: I have about 10 years total with my state’s Dept. of Transportation, almost all in our Traffic Engineering unit. Have worked in various roles in each functional area within our unit (safety, design, studies, & ITS) so I’d say I’m a fairly well-rounded traffic engineer. We cover a large diverse region with everything from highly urbanized areas to isolated rural roadways. My first 1.5 years was in a rotational program where I spent a few months in each of the major functional areas in the department (planning, design, construction, maintenance) so I was able to get a pretty good grasp of how all of the pieces within our organization fit together, as well as make some meaningful contacts that have served me well over the years. This also helped me figure out what specialty in transportation engineering I wanted to work in, since even transportation engineering at a state DOT is very broad.
I have my PE and PTOE. Work environment is great, I really enjoy the team I work with as well as the work we do. I generally feel like we make a difference by positively impacting safety and quality of life for the public, although there are definitely times when the politics, government bureaucracy, or just general work frustrations cloud things. I’m married with 2 kids under 5, so the DOT work/life balance and flexibility/vacation time is a huge value for me, although there are times I don’t get to utilize it fully when I’m really busy.
Have been in my current role for about 3 years (1st position w/formal management responsibilities) where I help oversee operations and maintenance of our ITS & Traffic Signal systems. Most of my average day is in the office, but I can spend a good amount of time in the field depending on the week or the fire that needs putting out. Now my days are mostly management/administrative functions, but still with a decent mix of technical work as well, especially compared with some of the other units in our organization. I work out of our Traffic Management Center (TMC), which is basically a building with people watching roadway camera feeds looking for traffic backups, for those unfamiliar. Most of my work is oversight of consultant/contractor staff (we outsource about 90% of the work), but I have 4 internal direct reports (1 PE, 2 contract/project managers and 1 technician). Typical day can vary
... keep reading on reddit ➡really struck by J Smit's logical, understated and underreported observation at min 3:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bfLGfaGq1k&ab_channel=EITUrbanMobility
I just had some general questions about the field and about your experiences. Coming from a Mechanical background, any advice/information shared would be greatly appreciated!
1.What do you enjoy about transport/traffic engineering and what's your least favourite part of the job?
2.The industry itself. It's quite specialized and most of the roles are in local government (there aren't very many private transport companies). How stable is the job market for transport engineers and what's the outlook for it?
This isn't a huge factor for me as I'm very interested in working on projects that better the community, but it would be interesting to know more about. As a ME I won't be able to switch to the other fields in Civil like Structural or Environmental after.
3.Are there any resources that would give me a quick overview of what the field is about, the common tasks of a transport engineer and the softwares used. E.g. "Traffic engineers use this software to model this ______"
Thanks in advance!
A funny thing I came across in Sweden, in a Dr. Strangelove sort of way, is when you're driving gently down a very straight, flat road, deep in the night (you know, 4pm), black asphalt, white snow, black, cloudless skies, when out of nowhere the road widens immensely under your headlights, keeps straight and flat and broad for a good while, and then returns to normal. Found out why at the Air Force museum..
TIL it was not the only country that had those. Countries that have built highway strips include both West and East Germany, Singapore, North Korea, Taiwan, Sweden, Finland, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Poland, India, Pakistan and Czechoslovakia.
Still, you'd think highway strips might actually be a good idea for other purposes than defense, like, say, supplying rural areas that are a long drive or train ride away from the nearest airport with especially urgent logistics, first-response personnel and servicemen, or travelers in a big hurry, providing least-bad emergency landing spots for planes in technical difficulty, letting general amateur or agricultural flyers use a public facility at scheduled times (and/or with appropriate cut-off methods) that is otherwise open to car traffic, rather than build whole private aerodromes that are empty s
... keep reading on reddit ➡
I have a site advertising a couple of prefixes out two different ISPs - Cogent (primary) and Colt(secondary). We use local preference on our side to make Cogent preferred for outbound traffic and we 2x prepend our AS on the Colt side to make it less preferred for inbound. Pretty standard stuff.
However, we get virtually no inbound traffic on the Cogent side, its all coming in over the Colt connection.
Ive checked a few looking glasses and can see a bit of a mixed situation - some providers only show the Colt path, some only the Cogent, some show both and there isnt really much of a pattern I can see yet.
I have an open ticket with Cogent to get their input on it, but has anyone else had a similar issue and any ideas on how to steer the traffic into the Cogent side fully? Should I just keep prepending until something flips?
Mechanical Engineering student here, about to enter my senior year of undergrad. I've always been passionate about road design and traffic analysis, and am hoping to get a job at a state DOT as some kind of traffic engineer.
I chose mechanical engineering as it was the closest major my school offered to civil engineering at the time, and now I'm thinking it might have been a waste of time. I've looked into starting civil engineering at my school and graduating with both civil and mechanical at the end of my fifth year, but that would be an extremely tight schedule. At this point, I will be graduating with a mechanical degree whether or not I am able to pursue civil, just because I'm so far into the program.
I've considered getting a Master's Degree in Civil Engineering after I finish my mechanical bachelor's, but I would have to take undergrad leveling courses and grad school is pretty expensive, as you know. Another option would be taking the PE for civil engineering, even with a mechanical degree.
What is my best option here? I really want to go into traffic engineering but it doesn't seem like the industry hires many Mech.E.s. Is the Civil PE option even feasible? Would a Master's degree be worth it? Any advice is appreciated.
For someone who is interested in doing a masters in Transportation planning, I would like to know what are most the basic and necessary programs that a transportation expert would need to learn for making it easier for me whilst applying for a masters. And also a the future job.
Prepping for the PE license in CA, was curious if a poor driving record (I.e. >20 speeding/traffic light/ failure to yield citations in the past 5 years, 1 DUI, 1 failure to obey) could potentially affect approval for PE, particularly in traffic engineering
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