

Ask HN: Are There any Interesting Jobs in Traffic Engineering for a CS Major? - learc83

I&#x27;ve got 2 semesters left to finish up my CS degree. I&#x27;m 30 and I&#x27;ve got about 8 years experience as a freelance programmer.<p>I&#x27;m interested in solving problems related to traffic engineering. I don&#x27;t have the time&#x2F;money to go back to school again to get civil engineering degree, so maybe something like working on traffic simulation software?
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peatmoss
Depending on what your interest in transportation engineering is, you may find
yourself pretty disappointed. I can probably opine a little on this based on
my background. I did primarily unix systems and security for the better part
of a decade before getting a masters in urban planning, spending a few years
working for a metropolitan planning organization including in their travel
modeling group (these are usually the major public sector transportation
modeling agencies due to federal requirements), and am now back in school
working on a PhD in planning. I'm going to give you the traditionalist's view
here, which may look a little drab / discouraging.

If you want to "fix traffic" I highly recommend running away now. You will not
fix traffic as transportation modeler (I assume transportation modeling is
what you mean by traffic simulation). The state of the art in travel modeling
is not good enough that obvious solutions present themselves very often. Even
when obvious solutions to some narrowly-constrained problem _do_ present
themselves, model results are usually one data point for consideration in a
delicate dance between bureaucrats, politicians, and a general public with
diverse and competing interests. You will also find yourself very poorly
compensated compared to your peers who graduated in CS.

Another thing to keep in mind walking into anything transportation related
(private or public sector), is that you are going to have a big ramp-up on
domain knowledge / will start at the bottom of a low-paying totem pole. In my
group in a public agency, we had a handful of people with PhDs, lots with
masters, and I'm struggling to think of one person with a bachelors. And to be
clear, a masters degree in civil engineering, planning, or public affairs
qualified you for an entry level (assistant) position or maybe an associate
level if you had some decent experience on top. I don't bring this up because
I'm under the delusion that degrees make the person, but do beware that you're
likely to run up against some biases if not hard degree requirements. In terms
of domain knowledge, the transportation research board (TRB) is one of the
national academies of science. I'm not sure the best scholarship always
happens in this domain, but I bring this up to say that there's lots to
learn... Also, transportation modeling is a very stats-heavy domain. Getting
into the guts of transportation models is likely to require more than a
passing familiarity with graduate level statistical methods.

In the public sector, the MPO I worked for was actually developing its own
next generation travel modeling package, but opportunities in the public
sector for that are as rare. The public sector has been running so-called
"trip-based models" for decades. The software for these has been an off-the-
shelf affair for some time, with actual model runs set up through either
through monotonous clickety-click or ghastly macro language by intern-level
positions guided by more senior modeling staff. Activity-based models are the
next generation, and are being tested out by more ambitious agencies now. Once
the benefits of these new models are proven out, smaller MPOs and city
planning offices will likely adopt them. However, I don't see the the second
wave hiring in-house coders--they'll wait until they can get an off-the-shelf
package (or if there is justice in the universe, some usable open source
version). I mention this because, despite the breakneck pace at which academia
produces new and novel statistical and modeling techniques, consumers of these
models are crazy slow at adopting new model types. This obviously has
implications for what kinds of coding jobs exist.

You might find an in as a coder for a company that writes one of the major
existing travel modeling software packages, but my understanding talking to
them, is that they tend to be fairly small operations and have coders who also
tend to have some domain expertise in travel modeling. I could imagine them
hiring a straight-up coder, but breaking into the subject matter might be
hard, as you could very easily end up doing pretty generic coding tasks with
little relation to traffic engineering.

Reading through this, I'm realizing I sound pretty discouraging. If you
constrain yourself to transportation modeling, which is what I assume you
meant by traffic simulation, you may find yourself disappointed by the
opportunities. This is the boring traditional world of transportation
modeling. If you're willing to look outside transportation modeling, you may
find some more interesting transportation-related coding jobs that are
friendlier to people with more of a coding / entrepreneurial bent.
Particularly in the startup space. I think there's still plenty of greenfield
left for people wanting to sensor-up the city, ferry those data around, and
then make sense of it all.

~~~
learc83
Thank you very much for the in-depth reply. I was hoping someone in hacker
news would know enough about the subject to give me some ideas.

As far as my interest goes it's nothing specific, more of a general interest.
I've been interested in traffic patterns since my first retail job years ago
where I noticed that customers tended to enter the store in groups causing
long lines. When I paid closer attention I noticed that cars tended to arrive
in the parking lot in groups and I assumed that traffic lights and stop signs
were causing this. This got me thinking about how much traffic engineering
affects every day life in ways other than just commute times, and I find it
fascinating.

Just curious--does a masters in urban planning require a specific undergrad
degree or would it be open to someone with a CS degree?

~~~
peatmoss
My pleasure. I think a lot of people end up doing transportation-related
things as the result of this kind of curiosity. In my case, I got serious
about bicycle and pedestrian advocacy as an undergrad after a beloved
professor was killed crossing a street by hit-and-run driver. It took me
nearly a decade after that to decide to do a masters in planning. Then the
research bug bit!

Planning is belligerently multi-disciplinary. Provided you can spin a good
yarn in your entrance statements, and your CS GPA wasn't in the toilet, having
a CS degree is a fine asset.

One thing to think about (beyond "do I want to enter a field in which I will
earn less than what I'd make with a CS degree alone?") is how you want to come
at transportation. For example, sometimes people ask what the difference
between a planner and a civil engineer is. I usually reply something along the
lines of "if you want you build a bridge, call a civil engineer; if you want
to know where to build a bridge, call a planner."

Planning, civil engineering, and public affairs all have their fingers in the
transportation pie. If you're a planner, a masters program will try to prepare
you for a pretty broad range of tasks that include knowing something about
your problem domain, how to communicate with political types, and how to
communicate to angry citizens with pitchforks.

Civil engineering tends to focus more on nuts and bolts kinds of problems in
transportation. Oddly, I feel like civil engineering is more solidly
represented in statistical modeling functions within planning agencies. I.e.
civil engineers tend to be more quantitative. That said, I always had the
option of taking courses cross-listed with statistics--the same coursework
that is now making my brain bleed in the PhD program.

Planning tends to be more systems-oriented at the technical side, and more
human-oriented at the drum circle side. The differences between public affairs
and urban planning can get pretty minor at times--my masters program offered
concurrent MUP with public affairs (and maybe civil?) options. I knew a number
of students who did public affairs and planning.

My feeling (perhaps erroneous) is that planning masters students get a little
more latitude to play than do civil engineering masters students. There are
planners that do lots of different kinds of stuff--even just within
transportation planning, never mind land use (more important than
transportation), electric, sewer, water, etc. As a result of needing to do
lots of stuff, you get more freedom to scratch your own itch. That said,
getting a job with your masters in civil and PE is likely a bit easier than as
a planner. But, you've already got a job-friendly degree ;-) For the record, I
had an easy time getting work as a planner after my MUP, but I did have
classmates who took a little longer to find relevant work.

My recommendation before going and upending your life for another degree would
be to go read some good mass-market books that explore basic concepts and
contemporary issues in transportation planning. In order, I'd suggest Traffic
by Vanderbilt, The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup, and Human
Transit by Jarrett Walker (disclaimer, I had a minor role in reviewing the
latter). All three are written with a minimum of jargon, and all three will
give you a flavor for the kinds of things planners think about. You might then
find out if your city has some sort of group that meets to hack for civic
purposes. These are cheap ways of scratching the itch...

------
hga
One possibility is companies that make electronic devices for this; not all of
it is classical embedded, BTW, or at least so I remember from one small
company I interviewed at which used Visual Basic in the '90s and at least a
bit beyond, although I can't remember exactly what they were doing. That won't
be traffic engineering per se, but will be a part of it.

Various units of government with responsibility for high traffic and
congestion road system set up command centers of a sort, with lots of cameras,
the ability to change signaling systems, put messages up on signs, maybe even
open or close entrance gates and the like. In the center I worked at for a
while (on their abandoned bespoke software), they also dispatched or
coordinated with crews to do work.

Which brings up one issue, working for or with the government has its own
special characteristics, and is going to be inevitable in this sort of career.

Good luck!

~~~
learc83
>One possibility is companies that make electronic devices for this

Thanks for the suggestion. My degree concentration is actually embedded
systems, so that's interesting.

------
RhysU
Traf-o-data.

