Professional traffic operations engineer
A traffic operations practitioner specialist (TOPS) is a certification sponsored by the Transportation Professional Certification Board, Inc., and promulgated by the Institute of Transportation Engineers. A Professional Traffic Operations Engineer (PTOE) is a separate certification also offered by the Transportation Professional Certification Board, Inc. Prior to taking the now defunct TOPS exam, an individual must have at least five years of related working experience, though academic experience may be substituted for this requirement. Additionally, as the certification is not intended for professionals, licensed professional engineers are not permitted to be a certified TOPS.
Exam topics
The 150-question certification examination currently includes the following topics:[1]
- Traffic characteristics
- Data collection and analysis tools
- Field studies
- Site impact studies
- Documentation, reporting and presentation
Traffic operations studies
- Road user characteristics
Traffic devices
- Fundamentals of traffic control devices
- Traffic signs
- Pavement markings and delineation
- Traffic signals
- Temporary traffic control devices
- Intelligent transportation systems
- Operation and maintenance of devices
Elements of design
- Functional classification of roads
- Vehicle operating characteristics
- Horizontal alignment
- Vertical alignment
- Sight distance
- Cross section elements
- Intersection design
- Freeway and grade-separated intersection design
Traffic safety
- Interrelationship of drivers, non-motorized users, roadways and vehicle
- Safety data analysis
- Safety countermeasures
- Safety hardware
- Safety reviews and audits
Incident management
- Incident detection
- Planning, response and recovery
- Traveler advisory techniques
- Corridor management
Transportation management
- Signal operations
- Parking
- Traffic calming and speed management
- Multimodal systems
- Accessibility guidelines
- Managed lanes
- Transportation demand management
See also
References
- ^ Traffic Operations Practitioner Specialist. ITE (2006). Retrieved on 2006-16-11.