Position closes on 7/5/2026 at 11:59pm.

Job Description

The Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT), Systems Planning Bureau, is seeking a Transportation Planner 2 who will serve on the Traffic Modeling, Forecasting, and Telemetrics Team.  You will also provide critical transportation planning technical support to Iowa’s local agencies, including the nine metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and perform a variety of long-range transportation planning activities for the Iowa DOT.

The Iowa Department of Transportation’s Mission is Making Lives Better Through Transportation. To accomplish our Mission, the person selected for this position will demonstrate actions and behaviors guided by the Iowa Department of Transportation’s five core values: Safety First, People Matter, Customer Focused, Servant Leadership, and Integrity Without Exception.

Location: Ames, Iowa

Shift: Days, Monday through Friday, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm with flextime and telework available. Occasional travel; overnights are not regularly required.

This position will play a critical role in strengthening and improving the department’s GIS-based travel demand modeling and traffic forecasting processes. Responsibilities include performing long-range planning activities for highways, including capacity analyses, asset management system integration, condition analyses, Census data analysis, etc. Other responsibilities include representing the department and making presentations to MPO Technical committees and policy boards.

Duties include, but are not limited to: 

• Investigates and uses a wide range of software programs, including but not limited to Microsoft Office Suite, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and other transportation planning-related software 
• Analyzes and interprets various types of transportation planning data (e.g., Census, Survey, Inventory, Highway Performance and Monitoring System, Pavement, Traffic Count) for forecasting, travel analysis, and long-range transportation plan development 
• Prepares background research and gathers information to support travel demand modeling, traffic forecasting, project analysis, interchange justification, and long-range plan development 
• Provides professional written and verbal communication to coworkers, internal and external customers for traffic forecasting, travel analysis, travel demand modeling, interchange justification, and long-range plan development on a regular basis 
• Conduct on-site visits to Iowa’s nine metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and 18 Regional Planning Affiliations (RPAs), and other Iowa DOT partners and affiliates 

In this position, we are seeking an individual with: 

• Strong analytical skills
• Strong technical writing and oral communication skills