Skip to main content

Transportation survey – industry on the move

US technology company AirSage has conducted what it says is the first in an annual look at the transportation industry and the professionals in it – with some interesting findings. Just released as an eBook, the AirSage Annual Transportation Industry Survey: an Industry on the Move, provides an insight into how US-based transportation planners and traffic engineers peers view the industry, their organisations, private versus government jobs, gender and age issues and more. Conducted During May and June 2013
August 19, 2013 Read time: 3 mins
US technology company 6178 AirSage has conducted what it says is the first in an annual look at the transportation industry and the professionals in it – with some interesting findings.

Just released as an eBook, the AirSage Annual Transportation Industry Survey: an Industry on the Move, provides an insight into how US-based transportation planners and traffic engineers peers view the industry, their organisations, private versus government jobs, gender and age issues and more.

Conducted During May and June 2013, the company questioned 126 respondents on a variety of issues from how practitioners keep up with industry trends/news to how they use social media, from what motivates them to go to work to where they see the industry should go versus where it will go, and more. Among the transportation planners surveyed, the study found:

•    21 per cent of respondents ages 18 to 28 cited working with different generations as a top concern
•    86 per cent prefer to get their news the old fashioned way (trade associations and newsletters, networking at smaller or local events, and traditional news sources such as The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, etc.) and only 16 per cent use social media as a primary news source
•    28 per cent  of planners polled were female and 43 per cent of them say there are a number of quiet/hidden challenges for women
•    65.4 per cent of those under 29 and 26.7 per cent of 29-35 year-olds were strongly in favour of new technology, while 81.4 per cent of over 57 year-olds were highly sceptical of it

AirSage says peer-to-peer perspectives, like those captured in this survey, provide a valuable lens through which transportation planners can evaluate their careers, their industry and multi-discipline projects.

“As a technology company that provides data to the transportation industry, we want to understand what professionals in every segment of the transportation industry are thinking, so we can improve our products and services,” said Cy Smith, CEO and Founder of AirSage. “And, we have a social responsibility to provide insights, particularly technology-driven insights, to the industry. The result is the First Annual Transportation Industry Survey.”

Other findings featured in the eBook include: perspectives on government entities versus private corporations; views on technology and how innovative the industry is; insights into how transportation planners view budget challenges and bureaucracy; and the future of housing, infrastructure, transportation planning and urban/suburban sprawl.

“Today’s professionals must keep current in new and emerging technologies to recommend the most cost-effective, site-specific solutions,” said Thomas W Brahms, executive director and CEO, 5667 Institute of Transportation Engineers. “In addition, we need to encourage new partnerships between the public and private sectors to develop collaborative solutions for transportation needs at all stages: planning, design, implementation and maintenance.”

Related Content

  • February 2, 2012
    Travel restrictions cause ITS professionals' knowledge gap
    Andrew Barriball once again campaigns for senior USDOT officials to see sense and lift some of the restrictions on out-of-state travel for transportation professionals. The ability to attend conferences and exhibitions is not a luxury, he says; it is a valid and cost-effective way of advancing the state of the traffic management art
  • October 29, 2015
    Support for speed cameras remains high – but some drivers need convincing
    A national survey by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has shown that although most drivers support speed cameras there are big variations across the country – and Londoners and people in the north-east appear to show higher levels of resistance than most. The survey polled 1,000 drivers of all age groups across Britain and asked “It is now common for the authorities to use speed cameras at the side of the road to identify vehicles involved in speeding offences. How acceptable do you think this i
  • April 7, 2014
    America fires V2V starting gun
    Leo McCloskey, ITS America’s senior vice president for Technical Programs, talks to Jason Barnes about what the recent NHTSA ruling on light vehicle connectivity means for cooperative infrastructures in North America. In early February the US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced it had decided to start taking steps to enable Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication technology for light vehicles. In so doing, the many safety-related applicati
  • March 28, 2018
    MaaSLab research assesses Londoners’ attitude to MaaS
    As delegates head for our second MaaS Market Conference, Colin Sowman examines a new report looking at the potential impact of Mobility as a Service on London’s travellers and transport providers. In the run-up to ITS International’s MaaS Market (London) conference, a new independent report examining the travelling public’s appetite for Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has been published. Until now, there has been no real evidence base to evaluate the extent to which MaaS could change travel behaviour in