An analysis of graduate transportation planning education in the United States

Abstract

Recent federal legislation and policy directives have resulted in significant changes in the transportation planning and decision-making process. The Americans with Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act Amendments, and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act all place new responsibilities and requirements on state, regional, and local transportation agencies. The Acts also establish new federal priorities for the surface transportation system and contain additional guidelines for planning, financing, and administering the different modes. Transportation planners with a wide variety of skills will be needed by the affected agencies, and other public and private sector groups, to adequately respond to these new demands. Educational programs, especially those at the graduate level, will need to be attuned to these changes to help ensure that the current and future demands for transportation professionals are met. This research examined the influence of recent legislation on the skills and areas of expertise needed in the transportation planning marketplace and analyzed the responsiveness of current urban and regional planning graduate programs to meeting those demands. This was accomplished through an analysis of recent federal legislation, national research problem statements, interviews with 46 transportation professionals, and a survey of the 79 urban and regional planning graduate programs in the United States. The research results indicate that while the current transportation planning curriculum address many of the existing and anticipated future demands of the transportation marketplace, improvements are needed in a number of areas 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 current curriculum indicated that many, but not all of these areas are being addressed. Knowledge and skill areas identified for more extensive coverage in graduate courses included multimodal and intermodal planning, the environmental impacts of different modes, advanced technologies, emerging travel demand management techniques, travel demand forecasting, and geographic information systems and other computer applications. Based on the results of this analysis, enhancements to current curriculum are suggested and a revised transportation emphasis area for the Masters of Urban Planning program at Texas A&M University is presented.