Transportation Engineering 2.0: A Vision for the Future Transportation Engineering Workforce

This study sought to advance a future-ready transportation engineering (TE) workforce by investigating emerging industry-wide challenges, essential skills, and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. To accomplish this, a national survey was conducted with seventy transportation engineers and managers, using open-ended questions to capture perspectives on pressing transportation challenges, critical TE workforce competencies, and the current and future integration of engineering and non-engineering disciplines. Thematic qualitative coding of survey responses was applied to identify and analyze trends. The findings underscore the importance of integrating traditional TE with fields such as computer science, big data analytics, social sciences, behavioral science, and public policy to more effectively consider human behavior, transportation system safety and resilience, and broader societal impacts. Although the need for greater interdisciplinary integration is increasingly recognized, institutional barriers and underrepresentation persist in both education and practice. To address these gaps, a two-pronged strategy is recommended: (1) embedding interdisciplinary coursework and projects within university TE curricula and (2) offering professional development opportunities that expose practitioners to emerging technologies and non-engineering perspectives. Future evidence-based research should focus on how integrating socio-technical approaches into TE education and practice can better prepare the workforce to tackle the complex challenges of a rapidly evolving industry.