Civil engineer services encompass several different specialties within one industry, such as transportation planning. This specialty involves the use of creating and organizing policies and engineering plans to ensure optimum transportation of goods, services, and people. For example, the roadways on which you drive your car and subways which you use to commute to work, were all once involved in this process, providing a clear understanding of the importance of transportation planning.

If you find yourself wondering what some important issues might be, this guide has you covered! These issues help government officials, public citizens, and private businesses gain a better understanding of what’s going on in the industry. Check out the list below explaining these issues and what they may mean for the industry.

Top Issues Regarding Transportation Planning

1. Congestion Management

Anyone who has driven through a big city understands the problems with congestion. It doesn’t take much more than a fender bender, or even just a tailgater, to cause gridlock in rush hour traffic. In fact, a quarter of America’s interstate miles are regularly strained at near full capacity! Because of this, congestion management is a major issue in this industry. Transportation planning firms must consider the effects of congestion, using technical tools and evaluative performance measures.
Congestion studies and proper management allow cities and the public to benefit in many ways. To accomplish this, the professionals will develop strategies to ease congestion, while determining the cause and identifying locations that experience the heaviest traffic. They then determine what strategies have previously been implemented and what they can do to further alleviate the situation, all to ease traffic flow.

2. Air Quality

Air quality is heavily affected by the amount of transportation in a region. When planning out the city’s roadways, structural design and civil engineering specialists should consider the emissions of pollutants in the area. This is especially important for areas that are required by law to limit the amount of emissions and pollutants in the air.
Poor air quality can severely and negatively impact the health of the population, as well as causing environmental concerns. When considering the pollutants released from motor vehicles, these professionals must also consider other sources, like power plants and refineries, as well as businesses. To improve air quality, federal funding is available, yet these professionals should be proactive in trying to avoid any air quality problems.

3. Safety

Due to safer cars and legal regulations, such as the requirement to wear a seatbelt, transportation has become much less dangerous in recent decades. However, safety continues to be a major concern, as people experience a large number of crashes every day. In fact, while fatalities have decreased, the number of accidents have largely increased. While it is fantastic news that fewer people are dying from car accidents, the crashes have destructive economical effects, costing the people involved, insurance companies, and other travelers money and time.
To take this concern into account, professionals in this field must consider crash data and focus on analysis of factors that lead to crashes. With this knowledge, they can then set the appropriate regulations and strategies in place, to help keep the public safe. For example, about 30% of all accidents are caused by roads that are not well-maintained – either due to poor conditions and designs, or the presence of hazards. By eliminating these issues, we can easily decrease the number of highway fatalities.

In general, the roadways of the United States are often considered to be in poor condition. However, this does not have to be the case. With proper transportation planning by civil engineers and city management professionals, transportation options can be significantly improved! This is a great source for more.