American Council of Engineering Companies of Colorado

DVRPC’s Freight Program seeks a thoughtful and organized planner to contribute to a variety of critical freight planning projects. The Freight Program works to maximize Greater Philadelphia’s position in the global economy while promoting a balance between quality of life, safety, environmental, equity, and economic goals through incorporation of freight in the transportation planning process. The program achieves this through innovative planning products, as well as advanced data analysis, community-level technical studies, and a wide range of research efforts. The program also coordinates a quarterly freight advisory committee engaging a wide range of private and public sector stakeholders in the planning process.

The successful candidate will be enthusiastic about performing innovative multimodal research and analysis, adaptable enough to contribute to a wide range of project types covering regional and local issues in freight, and an ability to clearly communicate the findings of complex analysis in writing, graphics, and maps. In addition, candidates should demonstrate the ability to think analytically and visually, and to bring together complex tasks into a cohesive deliverable that will advance public education, inform policies and strategies, and help build consensus.

The position involves working with both public and private sectors, project teams, and a wide array of local, state, national, and international planning partners. Work is performed in accordance with professional standards and is subject to technical review by the Manager, Freight Program.

Responsibilities

• Conduct planning studies including the establishment of goals and objectives, data collection, technical analyses, communication and engagement with stakeholders, and development of narrative content and visual graphics for final products.
• Incorporate freight considerations and community goals into regional planning through identified freight “centers,” good-neighbor strategies, and coordination with the DVRPC member governments.
• Maintain familiarity with major legislation and policies, projects, trends, and issues affecting all modes of freight transport.
• Maintain and update DVRPC freight planning data resources such as PhillyFreightFinder, freight activity and commodity counts and forecasts, National Highway Freight Network (NHFN), National Highway System (NHS) connectors, and performance measures.
• Conduct field views and surveys to collect information on the physical conditions and usage of facilities.
• Advance freight transportation improvements through the Transportation Improvement Program, the DVRPC long-range plan, and federal and state transportation funding programs.
• Perform tasks to support the DVRPC freight advisory committee by planning meetings, maintaining membership lists, cultivating new members, and preparing mailings, folders, and meeting highlights.
• Represent DVRPC at internal and external meetings.
• Establish connections between the freight planning program and other DVRPC planning areas such as community and economic development, complete streets, air quality, transportation operations, and safety.
• Perform related work and special tasks as requested.

• Knowledge of the principles, practices, and objectives of transportation planning, with an emphasis in freight, land use, and/or community planning.
• Knowledge of standard statistical techniques and methods of multimodal transportation planning.
• Knowledge and appreciation of global freight systems and major forces affecting them.
• Experience with graphics programs, word processing, spreadsheet software, and geographic information systems (GIS) and their applications. Ability to create graphics and document layouts to effectively present results of research using Adobe Suite is preferred.
• Experience with and/or willingness to learn code-based approaches to data management, analysis and visualization (e.g. Python, SQL, R, JavaScript, etc.).
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with work associates, planning officials, and non-traditional planning partners, and to identify potential programmatic growth areas.

Experience & Training

To classify as a level RA II, a minimum of three years of professional experience in transportation, freight, aviation, land use, community planning, or a related social science, and a Bachelor’s degree are required. To classify as an RA III, a minimum of five years is required. Such experience may have been gained from a combination of experience and education. A Master’s degree may be substituted for one year of experience.