Citation

Turnbull KF. Transp. Res. Rec. 1995; 1498: 57-64.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent federal legislation has resulted in significant changes in the transportation planning and decision-making process. The Clean Air Act Amendments, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other regulations establish new federal priorities for the surface transportation system and contain guidelines for planning, financing, and administering the different modes. Transportation planners with a wide variety of skills will be needed by public agencies and private businesses to adequately respond to these new responsibilities. Educational programs, especially those at the graduate level, must be attuned to these changes to help ensure that the current and future demands for transportation professionals are met. In this research the skills and areas of expertise needed in the transportation planning marketplace were examined and the responsiveness of current urban and regional graduate planning programs to meeting those demands was analyzed. This was accomplished through an analysis of recent federal legislation, national research problem statements, interviews with 46 transportation professionals, and a survey of 78 graduate planning programs in the United States. The research results indicate that while the current transportation planning curriculum addresses many of the existing and anticipated demands of the transportation marketplace, improvements are needed to adequately prepare graduate students for future jobs. The research identified 12 knowledge and 9 skill areas as important for future transportation professionals. The evaluation of the current curriculum indicates that many, but not all, of these areas are being addressed. Based on this analysis, knowledge and skill areas are identified for more extensive coverage in graduate courses.

Record URL:
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1995/1498/1498-009.pdf

Language: en

Keywords

Laws and legislation; Planning; Surveys; Transportation; Engineering education; Engineers; Personnel training