Transportation planning in civil engineering

Transportation planning is a critical component of urban planning and community development, typically overseen by departments of transportation (DOTs) or metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). While there are many different components of transportation planning, most projects focus on the safety, accessibility, and sustainability of the infrastructure serving a particular area and its population. This can take the form of analyzing neighborhood access to public transit, visibility of crosswalks, or the availability of active transportation choices, to name a few use cases.

Although the public sector shoulders much of the responsibility for transportation planning, civil engineering firms frequently play a role in advising on strategic development, enhancement, and upkeep. Private sector civil engineers contribute fresh expertise to transportation planning, leveraging insights gained from various projects with DOTs and MPOs to devise innovative solutions for transportation infrastructure.

Ecopia AI (Ecopia) collaborates closely with transportation professionals from both the public and private sectors, supplying them with high-precision geospatial data for numerous planning applications. Among the many use cases for geospatial data in transportation planning, civil engineers hired by DOTs or MPOs most commonly seek data support for active transportation planning, multimodal network analysis, ADA compliance, and Vision Zero programs.

Active transportation planning

As sustainability and healthy living become increasingly top of mind for DOTs and MPOs, civil engineers are brought on to consult in active transportation planning projects. Active transportation planning initiatives aim to increase access to physical options for transportation, including biking, walking, running, or similar methods. Not only do active modes of transportation promote healthy lifestyles, but they also reduce harmful carbon emissions from many vehicular or public transportation options. 

According to the US DOT, active transportation modes can be viable alternatives to any trip under 3 miles - accounting for 52% of all trips in the US. However, the DOT estimates that there is $7B in unmet need for active transportation modes across the country. To close this gap, many DOTs and MPOs are enlisting the help of experienced civil engineers to assess current active transportation infrastructure and develop strategic plans for expanding access to this critical form of moving around. Using geospatial data, civil engineers can analyze the availability, safety, and equity of bike and pedestrian routes. With this information, they can develop strategic active transportation plans with their MPO and DOT clients to make network enhancements and help them meet their goals.

Multimodal network analysis

Similarly, multimodal network analysis is focused on building out diverse transportation options throughout a community, providing people with a choice in how they want to get around. The primary goal of multimodal transportation planning is to reduce the number of individual vehicles traversing a community by creating an interconnected network of active and public transportation options. This enables people with multiple options for getting to their desired destination, but requires careful planning to ensure all areas are accessible.

Civil engineers are often contracted by DOTs and MPOs for multimodal network planning, analysis, and project management. Geospatial data provides the necessary insights for understanding current transportation infrastructure interconnectivity, as well as the dynamically changing demand for access brought on by population and local amenity changes. For instance, Ecopia worked with Fehr & Peers on a multimodal network analysis project for the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority (SBCTA), producing the 17 necessary map features needed across over 20,000 square miles 45x faster than previous manual digitization efforts. The resulting maps and analyses helped Fehr & Peers advise SBCTA on the best course of action for meeting their multimodal planning goals, such as reducing barriers between transportation modes to make them more accessible and interconnected.

ADA compliance

A critical component of transportation infrastructure is how accessible it is to all members of the community, including those living with disabilities. In 1990, the US government passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to promote inclusivity for disabled persons. For instance, to comply with ADA regulations, sidewalks must be at least 3 feet wide. In 1999, the Public Rights-of-Way Access Advisory Committee was formed to establish new guidelines that accommodate a more diverse range of disabilities; these newer PROWAG recommendations say sidewalks be at least 4 feet wide. The US Access Board provides many guidelines like this for transportation infrastructure, including sidewalk curb heights, ramp access, crosswalk visibility, and more.

Many MPOs and DOTs have initiatives to improve the accessibility of their transportation networks to comply with ADA and PROWAG recommendations. Civil engineers play a vital role in these compliance efforts by analyzing existing infrastructure and overseeing strategic project plans. By visualizing a region’s current transportation infrastructure with demographic data on vulnerable road users, civil engineers can create actionable plans for improving network accessibility where people need it most. Check out this StoryMap to see how such data analysis can uncover deep insights into transportation accessibility inequities and inform strategic right-of-way planning to meet ADA and PROWAG compliance objectives.

Vision Zero

Another initiative rising in popularity among DOTs and MPOs is Vision Zero, a goal to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy, and equitable mobility for all. Achieving a Vision Zero future requires an in-depth understanding of what causes traffic fatalities and serious injuries, and implementing safety measures to reduce their likelihood. This can involve analyzing past crash sites and their transportation infrastructure to see if enhancements can improve outcomes, such as making pedestrian crosswalks more visible or introducing new intersection controls.

Civil engineers often work closely with DOTs and MPOs on Vision Zero analysis and project planning. Like other transportation planning workflows, a key component of Vision Zero analytics is geospatial data. With high-precision data representing traffic infrastructure, civil engineers can overlay traffic incident location data to understand how safety can be improved and help the community work towards a Vision Zero future. For example, Ecopia’s AI-powered mapping data is used in Contra Costa County’s Vision Zero planning efforts by providing detailed safety information about specific arterials and priority pedestrian areas throughout the county. 

Geospatial data to support transportation projects in civil engineering

Analyzing data is crucial in all of these common transportation planning use cases. Collaboration between civil engineers and public sector stakeholders demands a thorough grasp of both infrastructure and the population it serves to assess situations accurately, propose enhancements, and oversee projects effectively.

Geospatial data serves as a cornerstone in this process. By employing highly precise maps reflecting real-world conditions, civil engineers can conduct sophisticated analyses to devise optimal transportation planning strategies without the need for time-consuming on-site evaluations. Among various geospatial datasets, the primary ones utilized include advanced transportation features, land cover, and demographics, each offering invaluable insights for planning purposes.

Advanced transportation features

Perhaps the most obviously useful geospatial information for planning projects is data representing specific transportation features, such as road lanes, pedestrian routes, curbs, and more. Advanced transportation feature data is extremely detailed as it delineates individual roadway features with attribution about what they are. For instance, this type of data will show a multi-lane county highway while denoting which lanes are turn only, how wide the shoulders are, and where traffic light-controlled intersections are located, among other things. This data is imperative for understanding what infrastructure exists where, and can be very resource-intensive to produce manually due to its extremely high precision.

Land cover data

Data about other real-world features, both in the natural and built environments, is also helpful for transportation planning. Land cover data that shows impervious surfaces, buildings, water bodies, and other elements of our world can add important context to transportation planning projects. As an example, many civil engineers will analyze the land cover immediately surrounding transportation infrastructure to understand how it may impact its longevity or safety; high levels of impervious surface near a railway track may lead to increased flooding that could disrupt service or damage the track itself. A complete, accurate, and up-to-date dataset of land cover is increasingly important for civil engineers to have in their toolset as communities rapidly develop and the climate changes, producing dynamic conditions that must be accounted for in any transportation planning projects. 

Demographics

While transportation planning is largely concerned with infrastructure, it’s important to remember why that infrastructure exists in the first place: to move people. As such, transportation planning projects almost always leverage geospatial demographic data. Demographics, like the robust datasets provided by the US Census Bureau, enable civil engineers to understand where people are in relation to transportation infrastructure and how they use it. A variety of detailed demographic variables exist that are particularly useful for planning, such as household access to a vehicle, means of transportation to work, and number of individuals living with disabilities. Additionally, understanding the distribution of safe, sustainable, and accessible transportation infrastructure across different socioeconomic groups or neighborhoods is an important part of understanding transportation equity.

Scaling transportation projects in civil engineering with AI

Geospatial data is an indispensable asset for civil engineers working with DOT and MPO clients on transportation projects. However, traditional methods of data creation have demanded that civil engineers allocate billable project hours to resource-intensive manual digitization, diverting their focus from strategic analysis and consultancy – the very essence of why their clients enlisted their expertise in the first place. 

For instance, it took GIS professionals in Collier County, Florida 4 years to manually digitize driveways, by which time new development had occurred, rendering the information outdated. Besides, most transportation planning use cases require a multitude of geospatial data features - not just driveways.

Thanks to cutting-edge innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), civil engineers can now swiftly map all of the features needed within a project area in just a few weeks, all with the precision of a seasoned GIS professional. This expedited timeline empowers civil engineers to scale client projects by accessing up-to-date, high-precision data without manual digitization, enabling them to expedite project goals and dedicate billable hours to core tasks like analysis and strategic guidance.

At Ecopia AI, we collaborate with civil engineers daily to amplify data creation efforts without compromising quality. Our AI-based mapping systems, engineered by geomatics specialists, efficiently extract vector data from geospatial imagery with the same quality as human-led feature tracing. Ecopia data then undergoes thorough quality control checks led by a human team of experts to ensure alignment with client specifications before being delivered to civil engineers. Thanks to this streamlined process, civil engineers can procure the requisite data for strategic consulting engagements within a matter of weeks, empowering them to tackle more projects without draining resources on manual digitization efforts.

Client spotlight: Fehr & Peers

As mentioned earlier, Ecopia works closely with civil engineering firms specializing in transportation planning, like Fehr & Peers. Ecopia and Fehr & Peers have partnered together on many different public sector transportation client projects, including active transportation planning, multimodal network analysis, and more. Thanks to Ecopia’s AI-based mapping systems, civil engineers at Fehr & Peers can stop spending valuable project time on manual digitization and instead provide more value to their clients through strategic analysis and consulting.

To learn more about how Ecopia can scale geospatial transportation data creation for civil engineering, get in touch with our team.