Question

Essay explaining your understanding of the profession of Transportation Engineering/Planning and how you plan to contribute to the excellence of the profession. This essay should be no longer than two typewritten pages, but no less than one single-spaced.

Answer 1

*Transportation has always played an essential role in the development of society, originally with regard to trade routes and harbours, but more recently with regard to land- and air-based systems as well. It is the transportation engineer's responsibility to plan, design, build, operate and maintain these systems of transport, in such a way as to provide for the safe, efficient and convenient movement of people and goods.

*Increasing environmental concerns have revived an interest in the development and management of public transportation systems. Professional activities can range from road and transit design and operation at the urban scale, to railroad, seaway and airport location, construction and operation at the regional and national scale. Transportation engineering in North America focuses on automobile infrastructures, although it also encompasses sea, air and rail systems.

*Automobile infrastructures can be split into the traditional area of highway design and planning, and the rapidly growing area of traffic control systems. The transportation engineer faces the challenge of developing both network links and major terminals to satisfy transportation demands, with due regard for the resultant land-use, environmental and other impacts of these facilities.

*Employment opportunities are available both in the public sector (e.g., federal and provincial government transportation ministries, regional and municipal roads, traffic and transit agencies) and the private sector (e.g., engineering consultants, trucking, railroad and airline companies, vehicle manufacturing). The undergraduate core and technical complementary program provide for a solid grounding in transportation engineering sufficient for related professional employment.

*Transportation planning in the United States is in the midst of a shift similar to that taking place in the United Kingdom, away from the single goal of moving vehicular traffic and towards an approach that takes into consideration the communities and lands through which streets, roads, and highways pass ("the context"). More so, it places a greater emphasis on passenger rail networks, which had been neglected until recently. This new approach, known as Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS), seeks to balance the need to move people efficiently and safely with other desirable outcomes, including historic preservation, environmental sustainability, and the creation of vital public spaces.

*The initial guiding principles of CSS came out of the 1998 "Thinking Beyond the Pavement" conference^[8] as a means to describe and foster transportation projects that preserve and enhance the natural and built environments, as well as the economic and social assets of the neighborhoods they pass through. CSS principles have since been adopted as guidelines for highway design in federal legislation.^[9] Also, in 2003, the Federal Highway Administration announced that under one of its three Vital Few Objectives (Environmental Stewardship and Streamlining) they set the target of achieving CSS integration within all state Departments of Transportation by September 2007.^[10]

In recent years, there has been a movement to provide "complete" transportation corridors under the "complete streets" movement. In response to auto-centric design of transportation networks, complete streets encompass all users and modes of transportation in a more equitable manner.^[11]The complete streets movement entails many of the CSS principles as well as pedestrian, bicycle and older adult movements to improve transportation in the United States.^[11]

-These recent pushes for changes to the profession of transportation planning has led to the development of a professional certification program by the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the Professional Transportation Planner in 2007. In response an advanced form of certification - the Advanced Specialty Certification in Transportation Planning was developed by the American Planning Association thereafter in 2011. The Certified Transportation Plannercredential is only available for those professional planners (AICP members) who have at a minimum of eight years of transportation planning experience.

*Transportation planning is the process of defining future policies, goals, investments, and designs to prepare for future needs to move people and goods to destinations. As practiced today, it is a collaborative process that incorporates the input of many stakeholders including various government agencies, the public and private businesses. Transportation planners apply a multi-modal and/or comprehensive approach to analyzing the wide range of alternatives and impacts on the transportation system to influence beneficial outcomes.

*Transportation planning is also commonly referred to as transport planninginternationally, and is involved with the evaluation, assessment, design, and siting of transport facilities (generally streets, highways, bike lanes, and public transportlines).