DISCIPLINE GROUPS

Fehr & Peers started its own research and development division by establishing discipline groups within the company. The goals of the discipline groups are to promote information sharing, establish best practices, implement quality control procedures, and develop selected research projects. Fehr & Peers’ current technical discipline groups include:

• Bicycle & Pedestrian Planning
• Traffic Engineering Design
• Impact Analysis
• Traffic Operations
• Smart Growth
• Transit
• Travel Demand Forecasting

Discipline group leaders and members are actively involved in advanced project applications and meet throughout the year to discuss research, current technical issues, and best practices.

One of the major benefits of the discipline groups is the leadership opportunities it provides for employees in the firm. Unlike many management-driven firms, our discipline groups give career path opportunities to staff who excel in a specific discipline. Fehr & Peers’ discipline group leaders manage research and development initiatives and serve as a resource for the rest of the company.

Recent discipline group initiatives include:

• Advanced Traffic Simulation models integrated with travel demand forecasting models and 3-D visualizations.
  
• Direct ridership forecasting models for LRT and BRT
  (Developed in cooperation with Robert Cervero of UC Berkeley.)
  
• Creation of preprocessors and postprocessors for all major traffic simulations and traffic operations used in the U.S.
  (Allows us to efficiently create operating models and extract results to a greater degree than our competition)
  
• Integration of the 4 Ds method for quantifying the transportation effects of smart growth land use projects.
  
• Development of calibration and validation guidelines for traffic simulation models that have been published in leading national papers.

"If you are interested in working in a learning environment on a team of transportation enthusiasts, then you want to work at Fehr & Peers. We invest in our employees through Fehr & Peers Academy and our discipline groups to provide each employee with the skills, knowledge, and tools necessary to develop effective and innovative solutions to transportation problems that consistently exceed our clients' expectations."

- Ron Milam, Principal-In-Charge of the Planning Discipline