THE EDUCATION OF TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PROFESSIONALS

By
Susan Handy
Lisa Weston
Jumin Song
K. Maria D. Lane
and
Jennifer Terry

Research Report SWUTC/02/167522

Southwest Region University Transportation Center
Center for Transportation Research
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712

October 2002

ABSTRACT

The practice of transportation planning at the regional level has evolved substantially over the past several decades. Once defined as largely a technical exercise, in which the calculation of required roadway capacity was the pre-eminent activity, transportation planning now encompasses a wide range of sometimes conflicting problems and demands, from growing levels of congestion and worsening air quality to neighborhood preservation and social equity concerns. But are the curricula in the planning and engineering programs that educate and train transportation professionals adequately preparing them for these new challenges? The objective of the study summarized in this paper was to compare the kinds of knowledge and skills important to transportation professionals today to the kinds of knowledge and skills that planning and engineering programs provide their students in order to highlight areas for improvement and suggest ways to enhance the education of transportation professionals. The research involved several components: a literature review on transportation education and planning education, an analysis of ISTEA and TEA-21 planning requirements, construction and analysis of a database on planning programs and selected transportation engineering programs as to their course offerings in the area of transportation planning, a survey of transportation planning professionals, and interviews with selected transportation planning educators and professionals. This report presents the findings from those efforts and suggests several important issues for transportation educators to address to improve the quality of education for transportation planning professionals.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The practice of transportation planning at the regional level has evolved substantially over the past several decades. Once defined as largely a technical exercise, in which the calculation of required roadway capacity was the pre-eminent activity, transportation planning now encompasses a wide range of sometimes conflicting problems and demands, from growing levels of congestion and worsening air quality to neighborhood preservation and social equity concerns. Federal transportation policy, as now shaped by the Transportation Efficiency Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21), dictates both the factors that regional officials must consider and the kinds of processes they must use in developing transportation plans. As a result, transportation professionals now more than ever need an extensive base of knowledge and a broad set of skills - technical skills but also communication skills, for example - to effectively perform their jobs.

But are the curricula in the planning and engineering programs that educate and train transportation professionals adequately preparing them for these new challenges? Planning programs, for example, may introduce students to transportation modeling techniques but do not often provide the opportunity for meaningful hands-on experience in developing and applying such models. Engineering programs, on the other hand, may provide sufficient technical training but little exposure to public involvement theory and techniques. With limited course hours in which to cover the broad field of transportation planning, programs must pick and choose what material will be required for all students, what material will be covered in elective courses, and what material will be left to an internships and on-the-job training. The resulting curricula may leave important gaps for those planning and engineering graduates who pursue careers in or related to regional transportation planning. These gaps in training potentially reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of transportation planning practice and may ultimately impact our communities in negative ways.

The objective of this study was to compare the kinds of knowledge and skills important to regional transportation planners today to the kinds of knowledge and skills that planning and engineering programs provide their students in order to highlight areas for improvement and suggest ways to enhance the education of transportation planners. The study addressed three general questions:

1. What skills and knowledge do today's transportation planners need?
2. What skills and knowledge are planning and engineering programs providing?
3. How well do these match?

The research involved several components: an analysis of TEA-21 planning requirements, a literature review on transportation education and planning education, construction and analysis of a database on planning programs and selected transportation engineering programs as to their course offerings in the area of transportation planning, a survey of transportation planning professionals, and interviews with selected transportation planning educators and professionals. Chapter 2 summarizes the literature review. Chapters 3 and 4 look at the professional perspective, through the on-line survey and interviews, respectively. Chapter 5 and 6 turn to the academic perspective, presenting the curriculum review and interviews with academics, respectively. Chapter 7 examines the outlook of today's transportation planners based on an attitudinal component of the on-line survey. The report concludes in Chapter 8 with an overall analysis of the findings and presents recommendations for the improvement of transportation planning education.

SURVEY ANALYSIS

The survey results suggest that most planning and engineering programs are covering most of the knowledge and skills that transportation planners need at about an adequate level. While that finding could be interpreted as good news for the profession, it also suggests substantial room for improvement. Perhaps the most striking result is the importance of public involvement and communication skills for the respondents and for entry-level planners coupled with the high share of respondents, especially those with masters degrees in engineering, that say that these skills were not covered in their degree programs. On the other hand, respondents with planning degrees are often missing out on the development of technical skills. The survey results also point to a lag between the skills and knowledge needed by transportation planners today and those they acquired in their degree programs many years earlier. Topics of new importance to the field of transportation planning, including environmental justice, Americans with Disabilities Act, air quality conformity, bicycle and pedestrian planning, environmental and sustainability issues often emerged as high priorities for additional attention in transportation programs.

INTERVIEWS WITH PROFESSIONALS

Changes in the practice of transportation planning that have come about since the passage of ISTEA in 1991 have contributed to a change in the kinds of skills and knowledge that MPOs and other agencies look for when hiring for entry-level positions. First, many of the skills that are important for today's transportation planners are not skills that are traditionally imparted through the classroom, particularly skills related to working with people. As a result, agencies place a great value on experience when evaluating applicants for entry-level positions. Second, today's transportation planners require a broad set of skills and knowledge in many different areas. As a result, agencies have come to value a planning degree on par with (or higher than) an engineering degree, and often hire applicants from backgrounds other than planning or engineering, especially if they have experience.

These findings have important implications for academic programs. First, both planning and engineering programs need to explore ways of incorporating training in all important skill and knowledge areas into their curricula. However, some areas are easier and more appropriate for these programs to incorporate than others. Imparting an understanding of the planning process and of transportation planning institutions is an important and achievable goal for these programs, for example. Developing an ability to work well with others is also an important goal, but one that is harder for academic programs to achieve. Second, to ensure that students develop these more subtle skills, planning and engineering programs need to explore ways of giving students opportunities to gain meaningful professional experience. Real-world, team-oriented course assignments and well-managed internships are an obvious approach.

CURRICULUM ANALYSIS

What the research in this chapter most clearly shows is that there is no standard or uniform approach to transportation planning education, within either planning schools or non-planning transportation programs. The number of transportation planning courses offered and the content of such courses are highly variable. Non-planning programs (the majority of which are engineering programs) offer 3.8 transportation planning courses on average, while planning programs offer 2.6 on average, but some programs offer two or three times as many transportation planning courses. Several of the leading transportation education programs offer potential models of interdisciplinary curricula, but none has yet established a standard for the field. A more detailed analysis of the content of transportation planning courses guided by the survey results described below, to be completed in the subsequent phase of this study, should offer more insights into the range of topics covered and the depth of coverage of each topic in these programs.

INTERVIEWS WITH EDUCATORS

Although the general consensus is that both planning and engineering programs are successfully providing a wide range of skills and knowledge to their students, most educators stress the need for more attention to both communication and analytical skills and to the achievement of an effective blend of planning and engineering skills. Establishing interdisciplinary programs to provide transportation students with the skills and knowledge they need to be effective professionals is not easy. Although both planning and engineering educators recognize the importance of such efforts, they have run into significant obstacles in their own attempts to improve transportation education. Some of these obstacles are administrative (e.g. delays in filling an open position, insufficient resources to help students find employment), while others are systemic to academia (e.g. lack of recognition for multidisciplinary work). In addition, the pace of change in the profession of transportation planning points to a need for regular reassessments of the curricula in planning and engineering programs, as well as efforts to provide students with professional experience as a part of their education.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The literature review, the survey of professionals, the curriculum analysis, and interviews with selected professionals and educators together point to several important and interrelated issues that transportation educators must resolve. The following comments are a synthesis of critiques and recommendations from all of these sources.

Communication Skills
The importance of communication skills is emphasized by just about everyone, researchers, professionals, and educators alike. This set of skills includes writing, data presentation, public speaking, and interpersonal relations. The challenge for transportation educators is to find effective ways of improving the communication skills of their students. Giving students practice in writing reports for the public or making presentations at public meetings is a start, but students also need more formal training to fully develop these skills.

Educator-Professional Link
The lag between the changing transportation planning context and the content of transportation planning curricula suggests a need for strong and respectful links between the professionals and educators. Many such links currently exist: professional planners serve on the accreditation teams for planning programs, educators work with professionals on consulting projects, and so on. Yet formal mechanisms for feedback from professionals to educators on the content of their curricula may be too rare.

Theory-Practice Tension
A related issue is an age-old tension between the teaching of theory and the teaching of practice. Professionals often fail to see the importance of the theory they learned as students. Students are often anxious to acquire the skills that they believe will help them land a good job. Educators often find it difficult to teach theory in ways that convince the students of its importance and incite their interest in the material. Yet theory helps transportation planners understand the phenomena they work with and the inherent subjectivity of the work they do, and it helps prepare them for taking on new challenges as the field of transportation planning evolves. Theory thus provides them with another important tool for doing good work.

Critical Thinking
Teaching transportation planning students to think critically is another important challenge for transportation educators. Transportation planners must understand both the strengths and limitations of the tools and techniques they use. They must be able to identify the different perspectives from which a problem can be defined or a solution evaluated. They must be able to acknowledge how their own attitudes and experiences influence the work that they do. They must be trained to question their work and the work of others in constructive ways. To meet this challenge, educators must think critically about their own work, in particular, the style of their teaching.

Political Context
An ability to work in an increasingly politicized climate is another requirement for today's transportation planner. Good communication skills, shared insights from experienced planners, a knowledge of planning theory, and critical thinking skills all contribute to this ability. Giving students a taste of the political realities of transportation planning and the kinds of compromises necessary for completing projects is another important challenge for transportation educators and demands creativity in the design of courses and class exercises.

Multi-Disciplinary Connections
Just about everyone also argues for the importance of multi-disciplinary connections to meet these challenges. Many programs appear to have made at least some of these connections, if only motivated by necessity rather than pedagogy, although these connections often depend on personal contacts and individual commitment. A few programs appear to have made these connections in a meaningful way, ensuring an education balanced between traditional technical skills and the "softer" kinds of skills demanded of today's transportation planners. The experiences of these programs may provide important guidance for the others on how to create an effective multi-disciplinary transportation planning program.

These findings point to a need for changes in planning and engineering programs to better prepare graduates for careers in or related to transportation planning. Curricular changes must include not just the topics and skills covered but also the ways in which students are trained and educated inside and outside the classroom. Of course, there's a limit to what academic programs can provide to their students, and on-the-job experience will always be an important source of training and education as well. But planning and engineering programs can almost certainly do a better job of preparing their graduates for the messy and evolving reality of transportation planning. Curricular improvements can help to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of transportation planning practice, impacting our communities in positive ways. Curricular improvements can also help to increase the value of a degree in transportation, whether offered by a planning, engineering, or multidisciplinary program, thereby benefiting both the programs and their graduates. To effect these changes, academic programs will need help from the transportation planning profession and from their own institutions and they will need to overcome their own inertia. The challenges may be daunting, but the potential payoff is promising.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Research on Transportation Education

Chapter 3. Survey of Transportation Professionals
    3.1 Respondent Characteristics
    3.2 Challenges of the Job
    3.3 Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses
    3.4. Professional Needs vs. Courses: Planning Vs. Engineering Jobs
    3.5. Professional Needs vs. Courses: Planning Vs. Engineering Degrees
    3.6. Professional Needs vs. Courses: Recent vs. Older Graduates
    3.7. Assessment of Applicants for Entry-Level Transportation Planning Jobs
    3.8. Conclusions on Survey Analysis

Chapter 4. Interviews with Transportation Professionals
    4.1 Selection of Organizations and Interview Methodology
    4.2 Skills and Knowledge in an ISTEA/TEA-21World
    4.3 The Fit Between Entry-Level Positions and Recent Graduates
    4.4 Experience vs. Education
    4.5 Conclusions

Chapter 5. Overview of Transportation Programs
    5.1 Transportation-Related Offerings in Planning Programs
    5.2 Planning-Related Offerings in Transportation Programs
    5.3 Urban Transportation Planning Courses
    5.4 Conclusions

Chapter 6. Interviews with Transportation Educators
    6.1 Selection of Educators and Interview Methodology
    6.2 Planning vs. Engineering Programs
    6.3 Providing Needed Skills and Knowledge
    6.4 Changes in Transportation Planning Education
    6.5 Conclusions

Chapter 7. Outlook of Today's Transportation Planners
    7.1 Overall Sample
    7.2 Planning versus Engineering Job
    7.3 Planning vs. Engineering Degree
    7.4 Recent vs. Older Graduate
    7.5 Pressing Issues and Promising Solutions

Chapter 8. Analysis and Recommendations

Appendix A: Text Version of On-Line Survey of Professionals

Appendix B: Interview Questions - Professionals

Appendix C: Interview Questions - Educators

Appendix D: Degree and Course Offerings by Planning and Engineering Programs

References

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 3-1. Planning vs. Engineering Jobs

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3-1. Topics and Skills
Table 3-2. Education of Respondents
Table 3-3. Professional Experience of Respondents
Table 3-4. Personal Characteristics of Respondents
Table 3-5. Most Challenging Aspect of Job
Table 3-6. Job Duties
Table 3-7. Type of Job vs. Type of Degree
Table 3-8. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses: Topics
Table 3-9. Right Portion of a Course: Topics
Table 3-10. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses: Skills
Table 3-11. Right Portion of a Course: Skills
Table 3-12. Wished-For Courses
Table 3-13. Importance of Sources of Education or Training
Table 3-14. Planning Degree is Excellent Preparation.
Table 3-15. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses for Topics: Planning vs. Engineering Jobs.
Table 3-16. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses for Skills: Planning vs. Engineering Jobs
Table 3-17. Wished-For Courses: Planning vs. Engineering Jobs
Table 3-18. Importance of Sources of Education or Training: Planning vs. Engineering Jobs
Table 3-19. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses for Skills: Planning vs. Engineering Degrees
Table 3-20. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses for Skills: Planning vs. Engineering Degrees
Table 3-21. Wished-For Courses: Planning vs. Engineering Degrees
Table 3-22. Importance of Sources of Education or Training: Planning vs. Engineering Degrees
Table 3-23. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses for Topics: Recent vs. Older Graduates
Table 3-24. Professional Needs vs. Academic Courses for Skills: Recent vs. Older Graduates
Table 3-25. Wished-For Courses: Recent vs. Older Graduates
Table 3-26. Importance of Sources of Education or Training: Recent vs. Older Graduates
Table 3-27. Importance vs. Assessment of Applicants: Topics
Table 3-28. Importance vs. Assessment of Applicants: Skills

Table 4-1. Transportation Professionals Interviewed

Table 5-1. Urban Transportation Planning Courses
Table 5-2. Books Required in Urban Transportation Planning Courses
Table 5-3. Summary of Topics in Urban Transportation Planning Courses

Table 6-1. Transportation Faculty Interviewed

Table 7-1. Views Regarding Current Issues in Transportation Planning
Table 7-2. Views Regarding Current Issues in Transportation Planning: Planning vs. Engineering Job
Table 7-3. Views Regarding Current Issues in Transportation Planning: Planning vs. Engineering Degree
Table 7-4. Views Regarding Current Issues in Transportation Planning: Recent vs. Older Graduates
Table 7-5. Most Critical Issue in Transportation Planning
Table 7-6. Most Promising Solution in Transportation Planning

Table D-1. Planning Programs: Degrees and Concentrations Offered
Table D-2. Planning Programs: Courses Offered
Table D-3. Non-Planning Programs: Transportation Degrees and Departments Offering Coursework
Table D-4. Non-Planning Programs: Transportation Courses Offered

DISCLAIMER

The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program, in the interest of information exchange. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors recognize that support for this research was provided by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program to the Southwest Region University Transportation Center, which is funded 50% with general revenue funds from the State of Texas. Thanks to Rudy Lopez for his work on the analysis of urban transportation planning courses.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

The practice of transportation planning at the regional level has evolved substantially over the past several decades. Once defined as largely a technical exercise, in which the calculation of required roadway capacity was the pre-eminent activity, transportation planning now encompasses a wide range of sometimes conflicting problems and demands, from growing levels of congestion and worsening air quality to neighborhood preservation and social equity concerns. Federal transportation policy, as now shaped by the Transportation Efficiency Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21), dictates both the factors that regional officials must consider and the kinds of processes they must use in developing transportation plans. As a result, transportation professionals now more than ever need an extensive base of knowledge and a broad set of skills - technical skills but also communication skills, for example - to effectively perform their jobs.

But are the curricula in the planning and engineering programs that educate and train transportation professionals adequately preparing them for these new challenges? Planning programs, for example, may introduce students to transportation modeling techniques but do not often provide the opportunity for meaningful hands-on experience in developing and applying such models. Engineering programs, on the other hand, may provide sufficient technical training but little exposure to public involvement theory and techniques. With limited course hours in which to cover the broad field of transportation planning, programs must pick and choose what material will be required for all students, what material will be covered in elective courses, and what material will be left to an internships and on-the-job training. The resulting curricula may leave important gaps for those planning and engineering graduates who pursue careers in or related to regional transportation planning. These gaps in training potentially reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of transportation planning practice and may ultimately impact our communities in negative ways.

The objective of this study was to compare the kinds of knowledge and skills important to regional transportation planners today to the kinds of knowledge and skills that planning and engineering programs provide their students in order to highlight areas for improvement and suggest ways to enhance the education of transportation planners. The study addressed three general questions:

1. What skills and knowledge do today's transportation planners need?
2. What skills and knowledge are planning and engineering programs providing?
3. How well do these match?

The research involved several components: an analysis of TEA-21 planning requirements, a literature review on transportation education and planning education, construction and analysis of a database on planning programs and selected transportation engineering programs as to their course offerings in the area of transportation planning, a survey of transportation planning professionals, and interviews with selected transportation planning educators and professionals. Chapter 2 summarizes the literature review. Chapters 3 and 4 look at the professional perspective, through the on-line survey and interviews, respectively. Chapter 5 and 6 turn to the academic perspective, presenting the curriculum review and interviews with academics, respectively. Chapter 7 examines the outlook of today's transportation planners based on an attitudinal component of the on-line survey. The report concludes in Chapter 8 with an overall analysis of the findings and presents recommendations for the improvement of transportation planning education.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH ON TRANSPORTATION EDUCATION

The question of the match between the knowledge and skills that transportation planners need and the knowledge and skills provided by planning and engineering programs has been addressed in a handful of previous studies. Most of these studies have been instigated by a significant change in the transportation planning field, for example, the passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991. The underlying question in these studies is whether and how quickly the curricula of planning and engineering programs are adapting to the changing demands of the field. For example, in the early 1980s, Hoel (1982) identified the completion of the Interstate system and the budget constraints that were to follow as a significant change in the field that would necessitate a new emphasis on planning, management, and policy in transportation education.

More recently, Sussman (1995) drew conclusions about the future needs of transportation professionals from several trends: the transfer of technology from the military to the civilian arena in the post-Cold War age, the increasing complexity of transportation systems, the tie between the transportation system and the national economy, and international competition. Given these trends, he argued that the "New Transportation Professional" must have skills that are both broad, in the sense of understanding the big picture of transportation, and deep, in the sense of being an expert on one part of the continuum. He warned that academia tends to change incrementally so that it might take a long time to transform a program to meet these new demands. He also argued that implementation of his suggested program would require the inclusion of many different kinds of instructors, not necessarily from the transportation field.

A study by Turnbull (1995) explored the match between professional needs and academic programs in more depth. Her work included a review of relevant legislation (ISTEA, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and the Americans with Disabilities Act), a review of problem statements from professional associations, and interviews with transportation professionals from the private and public sector representing all levels of transportation planning. Through this work she constructed a list of skills and knowledge areas that were then used to evaluate transportation planning curricula in the United States. Turnbull concluded that several new topics should be covered in introductory transportation planning courses, including multimodalism (while still covering the basics of individual modes), relevant legislation, and emerging technologies. In her conclusions, she also emphasized the need for transportation planners to be comfortable with both the technical and public involvement skills required today.

In 1997, The Transportation Research Board held a conference specifically aimed at evaluating the education and training needs of implementing all aspects of multimodalism (Meyer 1998). At the time, a review of 67 transportation programs across the United States found that 43% of the programs had added courses related to multimodalism in response to ISTEA, 28% had included multimodalism in the curriculum before ISTEA, and the others either made no change or minor curricular changes (Pignataro and Hoel 1998). The general conclusions from this review were that programs need better communication between relevant departments and that support by administrations for interdisciplinary programs needs to be increased.

Studies of planning programs in general, rather than transportation planning programs specifically, have also generated relevant recommendations. Ozawa and Seltzer (1999) studied the connection between the content of planning programs and the needs of the profession that will employ graduates of these programs. First, they analyzed the specific skills being sought by entry-level planners and compared those to graduate planning curricula. Professional planners were then asked to rate the importance of 45 skills that the researchers gleaned from previous studies and university faculty. The skills related to job performance as well as advancement within the organization. They found that the most highly rated skills were those related to communications: working well with colleagues, working with the general public, and understanding the needs of the client. Orlick (1993) found that professional planners see a need for planning students to acquire better communication skills; he argues for an open dialogue between educators and professionals in order to improve the match between the kinds of skills students acquire in planning programs and those that professional planners need.

This theme relates to another that emerges from studies of planning programs: students need skills that will help them deal with a complex, changing, and highly political world. Dalton (1993) called on planners to take a leadership role in order to foster community and balance the needs of people and the environment. To achieve this end, she advocates a synergistic relationship between educators, researchers, and practitioners. Khisty (1988) discusses the need for transportation professionals to have a strong background in planning theory to help them balance potentially conflicting needs and to play a leadership role in the transportation profession. A background in planning theory would also help transportation planners address equity issues and operate more effectively in an increasingly politicized field. Like others, Van Zuylen (2000) called for multidisciplinary approaches to transportation education and suggested that transportation problems today are so complex that it takes the expertise of more than one discipline to solve them.

The study summarized in this paper builds on these previous studies but makes several new contributions. First, ISTEA was passed more than 10 years ago, enough time for planning and engineering programs to have responded to the new transportation planning context that ISTEA has engendered if they are going to. In conjunction with the previous studies, this study provides a monitoring of sorts of the progress of these programs. Second, this study looks more directly at the match between professional needs and academic programs by asking practicing professions about their own job experiences and their assessment of applicants for entry-level transportation planning positions. That the recommendations that emerge from this study are similar to those from previous studies suggests that these recommendations need to be voiced once again.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 3. SURVEY OF TRANSPORTATION PROFESSIONALS

To explore the opinions of transportation planning professionals on transportation planning education and directly test the match between professional needs and academic programs, an on-line survey was developed and administered to self-identified transportation planning professionals. Based partly on the results of the literature review and review of ISTEA/TEA-21 planning requirements, lists of knowledge and skill areas potentially important to transportation planning professionals were developed (Table 3-1). These lists were used in several key questions in the survey relating to the respondent's own professional and educational experiences and to the respondent's assessment of applicants for entry-level transportation planning jobs. Several questions relating to the demographic characteristics and educational attainment of the respondent were also included in the survey, as was a series of attitudinal questions relating to current issues in transportation planning (summarized in Chapter 7). In order to assess in more detail the match between professional needs and academic programs, all questions were analyzed for the respondents divided by the type of job, the kind of master's degree, and working period after graduation (master's) as well as for the entire respondents. Several open-ended questions also enabled participants to provide unstructured responses. The survey was pretested by eight graduates of the University of Texas, and several modifications to the survey were made based on the results of this pretest. Websurveyor, a professional on-line survey service, hosted the survey. This service automatically tallies the survey responses and provides basic analysis capabilities.

Finding transportation planners to participate in the survey was not a simple task. Graduates of transportation planning programs, for example, do not all work in the field of transportation planning, and not all transportation planners have graduated from transportation planning programs. To achieve a relatively targeted sample of transportation planners, two groups of professionals were invited to participate in the survey: members of the American Planning Association (APA) Transportation Planning Division and members of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Planning Council. Using the listserves for these organizations, an e-mail was sent to members from the sponsoring organization with an introduction about the research project and an invitation to participate in the survey. Because not all members of these organizations are practicing transportation planning professionals, the e-mail notice asked recipients who are "working as transportation planners" to participate in the survey. In order to simplify survey participation, no identification codes were used to control the participation in the survey.

This method for administering the survey did not produce an entirely random sample of transportation planning professionals. First, not all transportation planners are members of these organizations. Second, not all members of these organizations have provided e-mail addresses. Third, participation depended on self-identification as a "transportation planner." Fourth, although a precise response rate cannot be calculated, the response rate appears to be relatively low. The notice was sent to 1,041 APA members and to 1,100 ITE members. After four weeks, 360 surveys had been completed, with 23 others deleted for incomplete responses on key questions. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they were contacted through the APA listserve, 31% through the ITE Planning Council listserve, 9% through other means (perhaps from colleagues), and 7% said they did not know. Despite these limitations, the sample should be sufficient for the exploratory objectives of this study.

3.1 RESPONDENT CHARACTERISTICS

The characteristics of the survey respondents are important background for understanding and interpreting the results of the survey. Of the 360 respondents, 71% had a masters degree as a terminal academic degree, 44% had a master's degree in planning, and 16% a master's degree in transportation civil engineering (Table 3-2). The results presented thus reflect to a large degree the experiences of graduates of planning programs. Of the 326 respondents having a bachelor's degree, 30% majored in engineering, mostly civil engineering, and 67% majored in other fields, mainly social sciences. Seventy-five percent of the respondents with a non-engineering major pursued a master's in planning, and 67% of the respondents with an engineering major pursued a master's in transportation engineering. While 24% of the respondents with an engineering major pursued a master's in planning, only 4% of the respondents with a non-engineering major pursued a master's in transportation engineering. For respondents with master's degrees, the average time since receiving that degree was 12.4 years but ranged from less than one year to 41 years.

Of the 360 respondents, 43% said that they work for a private consulting firm, 11% at a metropolitan planning organization (MPO), 24% at other regional or local agencies, 9% at state or federal agencies, with the remainder at non-profit or other organizations (Table 3-3). The results presented in the report thus reflect to a large degree the experiences of planners in private consulting firms. Sixty-one percent of respondents were working in organizations with more than 100 employees. Thirty-eight percent of respondents had been certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), 21% had Professional Engineers (PE) licenses, and 41% had no professional certification. Membership in professional organizations included the American Planning Association (69% of respondents), the Institute of Transportation Engineers (55%), the Transportation Research Board (23%), and other organizations, including the Woman's Transportation Seminar (WTS), the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE), and ITS America. A third of respondents are members of both APA and ITE. Respondents reported that they have worked in the transportation field for an average of 13.7 years, with nearly half working in the field for less than 10 years and 15% working in the field for 26 or more years.

Respondents were evenly distributed between the ages of 25 and 55, with only a small number of respondents younger than 25 and older or than 55 (Table 3-4). The low share of respondents between the ages of 55 and 65 may reflect the movement of transportation planning professionals into more senior positions, a lower rate of participation of older professions in listserves, or both. On other personal characteristics, the sample was not so diverse: over 70% of respondents were male, and 80% of respondents were Caucasian/White. If these statistics are reflective of the entire population of transportation planners, they suggest that the demographics of the field do not even remotely resemble the demographics of the population it serves.

3.2 CHALLENGES OF THE JOB

The first question on the survey asked respondents to describe in five words or less "the most challenging aspect" of their jobs. The responses to this question demonstrate the wide range of demands on today's transportation planners, from "effectively working with the public" to "coordination between levels of government" to "dealing with the travel model." Several patterns emerged among the responses, which we sorted into twenty-six different categories (Table 3-5). Technical analysis and public involvement, two of the primary duties of transportation planners, were both among the most frequent categories of responses. The three related categories of time management, managing multiple demands, and project and budget management accounted for 17.6% of responses. But the two most common response categories were politics and building consensus and balancing priorities, and several other categories, adding up to over one quarter of the responses, related to dealing with people: dealing with the public; frustrations with others; persuading, convincing, conveying; landing and dealing with clients; working with different disciplines.

Some of the most interesting responses fell into the rather broad category of frustrations with others. Some respondents expressed frustration with their superiors: "spineless top management," "educating my supervisors," "bosses not care biases inbred," or simply "my boss." Others with decision makers: "politicians!", "incompetent or corrupt public officials." Yet others with co-workers: "bureaucracy and coworkers without a clue," "others' lack of expertise/knowledge." One respondent, a woman, said, "dealing w/men less educated than I." These frustrations are probably not unique to planning but do suggest that a measurable share of planners are rather jaded and disgruntled. The split between respondents who said "dealing with the public" is their biggest challenge and those that said simply "public involvement" also suggests some level of frustration and cynicism in the profession.

Perhaps of most important were several responses in the "working with other disciplines" category. Some of these responses were very general: "working with different disciplines," "reconciling different paradigms," "coordinating with other professionals," "coordination information with other professionals." But the rest - 10 responses in all - mentioned working with engineers in particular as their biggest challenge, some in rather strong terms: from "dealing with engineers" and "working with old line engineers," to "communicating with transportation engineers" and "getting engineers to listen," to "engineer's blind adherence to conservative standards" and "trying to get engineers to think!" Another respondent said, "getting engineers to work together instead of above planners." All of these comments suggest an ongoing split between planners and engineers serious enough that these respondents called it their greatest challenge.

To characterize the nature of the work done by respondents, the survey asked about the duties included in the respondent's current position (Table 3-6). Over three-fourths of respondents said their duties included analyzing project alternatives, conducting public involvement, developing long-range plans, and assessing the community impacts of transportation projects. About two-thirds of respondents said that their duties included prioritizing projects and analyzing and developing policy, just over half said their duties included assessing the environmental impacts of transportation projects, and about 30% of respondents said that developing neighborhood plans was included in their duties. Most respondents report multiple duties: the average respondent reports 5.2 of the 8 duties listed in the survey, and only 16% of respondents report fewer than three duties. Beyond the eight listed, respondents included duties such as forecasting and travel demand modeling, managing grants, developing training and education programs, reviewing zoning and regulation changes, and so on.

In another approach to characterizing the work of the respondents, the survey asked respondents to indicate to what share of their job they would describe as "planning" and what share as "engineering" (Figure 3-1). Fifty-nine percent said their jobs were "mostly planning," while 33% of respondents said "some planning"; only 7.2% of respondents said their jobs were "all planning." In contrast, only 34 or 10.7% of respondents described their jobs as "mostly engineering." This finding is not surprising, given the two listserves used to distribute the survey. Interestingly, though, 64% of respondents said that their jobs involved "some engineering." These results suggest that the practice of transportation planning today is defined by a balance between the fields of planning and engineering, even if traditional splits between academic programs and professional affiliations remain.

Not surprisingly, there is some correlation between type of job and type of degree (Table 3-7). While equal numbers of respondents with engineering jobs had masters degrees in planning and engineering, half of respondents with planning jobs had masters in planning and only 16.4% had masters in engineering. Respondents with planning jobs and masters degrees in planning accounted for 112 of the 341 respondents or one third of the entire sample, the largest single segment.

Figure 3-1 Share of Job that is Planning or Engineering