Professional Engineer I, Traffic Safety - Denver

This position is open to Colorado state residents and non-residents.
New employees to the State will be paid biweekly. There are 26 biweekly pay periods in a year.

About the Work Unit

The Traffic Safety Programs, Data and Analysis work unit is to improve the safety of Colorado’s transportation system. As part of the Traffic Safety and Engineering Services branch, this unit facilitates the discussion and implementation of the most effective safety improvements along all public roads in Colorado. This unit is also responsible for statistical collection, management, QA/QC, and dissemination of statewide crash information (fatal, injury and property damage crashes). The quality of data is improved through modifications, creating a database that can be used utilized for data sharing and engineering analysis. 

The unit studies, analyzes, and recommends proven, researched, and innovative best practices in traffic engineering safety strategies and infrastructure improvements. This unit administers the federally funded Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and the state funded FASTER Safety Mitigation Program at the statewide level. Through these programs and the use of data-driven safety analysis, the unit promotes the application of proven traffic safety and engineering strategies to be institutionalized and implemented for the most effective reduction of the number and severity of motor vehicle crashes in Colorado.

About the Position

CDOT is looking for a licensed Professional Engineer to provide technical engineering support to the unit and Regions for traffic and safety engineering. This position will perform data queries, analyze data, use business intelligence tools and other software packages to link datasets, identify trends, and provide reports as needed by the branch and customers. Additional duties include preparing safety assessment reports for construction projects and highway corridors; evaluating, ranking, and selecting highway safety improvement projects proposed by local agencies and CDOT Regions. The Professional Engineer will conduct traffic studies and crash analysis for safety projects and Region requests; and research best practices, strategies, devices, infrastructure, technology in safety improvement.

Major duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Provide written safety assessment reports to the regions detailing results of investigation/research, along with recommendations for changes to be implemented on construction or safety projects;

• Provide support for the regions and consultants with all safety reports and analyses;

• Determine the type of data to be used, as well as environmental and driver behavior factors which identify safety concerns.

• Determine how a safety assessment will be completed. This includes decisions on the statistical methods, analysis procedures, and presentation formats used to examine and convey results of assigned safety assessments;

• Provide support to the unit in the administration of the Federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and the State FASTER Safety Mitigation Program;

• Evaluate potential safety projects for eligibility, update procedures and guidelines and develop project planning lists;

•  Solicit the regions and local agencies for potential projects;

• Run monthly financial and project status updates for HSIP or FASTER Safety Mitigation Program using SAP systems;

• Review the scope of the submitted project to assess eligibility by determining potential for safety improvement and if proposed project would mitigate the existing crash patterns for the project location;

•  Determine the crash modification factor based on state or federal research. Evaluate benefit-cost ratio to rank and prioritize projects for funding;

• Determine how to best track performance measures for each program and compile data for annual reports;

• Conduct regional data analysis and inspection of safety needs and relate crash causality to roadway geometrics, traffic control devices and traffic operations using principles of highway and traffic engineering;

• Analyze and model vehicle crash and travel data using traffic engineering software, traffic simulation software and real time traffic information applications;

•  Conduct research of the most effective best practices, strategies, devices, infrastructure, innovations, technology that improve safety to share statewide for institutionalization and implementation;

• Develop and maintain crash prediction models reflecting relationships between traffic volumes, roadway characteristics and crash frequency;

• Assist with safety asset management, specifications and standards, review of manuals, composing reports, reviewing studies and plans, and providing basic traffic engineering support;

• Support traffic crash data analysis, database management, and data entry accuracy;

• Other job duties as assigned.

Work Environment: 

• Primarily 8:00 am – 5:00 pm work hours, Monday-Friday, flex schedule 

• Approximately 5% spent in the field, 95% spent in the office

• Travel required to meetings around the state for safety studies, field studies, or to attend meetings; Approximately 3-7 times a year

• Required to operate CDOT vehicles