Federal Highway Administration

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

The Office of Transportation Policy Studies provides senior transportation officials with impartial and empirically-based insights into national policy options for cost-effectively improving the performance of our transportation system, and understanding the relationship between transportation policy choices and the economy.

This is your opportunity to apply your economics skills to understanding what our highways and roadways may mean for all types of transportation – from cars and trucks, to busses, light rail, bicycles, pedestrians – technologies (piloted and robotic) – and even how they fit within the larger context of air, water, and rail transportation.

As an Economist, you will:
o Identify key economic features associated with emerging transportation trends, technologies, modal options, vehicle markets, and markets for transportation service providers and propose analysis programs to improve FHWA understanding of these trends and their policy implications.
o Design, build, maintain, and utilize models and datasets necessary to understand how geo-spatial socio-demographic and economic patterns shape transportation options -including mobility services – and the movement of people and goods under a range of potential future technologies and policy options.
o Plan and execute a research program, including management of contracted research elements, to utilize available resources effectively in providing timely results responding to a range of high-priority questions about the relative importance of key assumptions, trends, or policy features.
o Identify the significance of research findings for policy development and effectively and impartially communicate your findings to agency decision-makers, the public, and the research community.

The ideal candidate for this position enjoys and excels at applied, data-driven research. Flexibility, creativity, curiosity, and a willingness to take initiative will help you to find—or to create—the projects that interest you the most ensure your research is effective in engaging senior leaders and shaping policy choices. Good time-management skills will enable you to juggle inevitably competing and changing demands and priorities in a dynamic policy environment. Good social skills will allow you to establish a close rapport with our leadership, and colleagues across the transportation community. Good communication skills will enable you to translate complex economic concepts and results into meaningful policy considerations.

• To qualify for the GS-14, you must have at least one year of specialized experience equal or equivalent to the following:

o Experience with advanced economic theories and quantitative research techniques applicable to analysis of markets with a geo-spatial component.