This is a grant-funded position, funded through the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grant and expected to last for eighteen months.

The Innovation and Technology Cabinet is looking for a Transportation Technology Strategist to join its Office of Emerging Technology. In partnership with the Boston Transportation Department and the Citywide Analytics Team, the Transportation Technology Strategist will support key deliverables for their Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) grant awarded by the US Department of Transportation. 

The grant funding was awarded to “develop a curb data inventory, using computer vision and machine learning to digitize street signs and update the inventory in real-time.” The City would like to leverage high-quality imagery data of all City streets to create a digital representation of curb regulations – something that has not been available to the public and to policymakers. In this role, you will manage the relationship between the Streets Cabinet’s asset management team and the Citywide Analytics team and work closely with a senior data scientist to create the new digital representation of curb regulations.

To successfully complete this grant-funded position, the Transportation Technology Strategist will:

• Collaborate with the Citywide Analytics team to connect the City’s asset management system to new, automated workflows (such as analyzing imagery with machine learning).
• Collaborate with analytics, engineering, and product management teams in the Innovation and Technology Cabinet to develop a systematic approach to apply the regulations indicated on each sign to the appropriate segment of the curb. This will have a temporal element as certain regulations only apply during specific days of the week or times of the day.
• Manage the creation of a public-facing map that displays real-time parking rules throughout the City.
• Advise the senior data scientist on ways to integrate overlapping regulations into a comprehensive view.
• Collaborate with the senior data scientist to make the data available via API by following the Curb Data Specification developed by the Open Mobility Foundation.
• Work with product managers and engineers to ensure that the digitized representation of the City’s curb is easy to maintain as changes are made to the built environment and to curb regulations.
• Collaborate with the Analytics team to publish curb regulation in the Curb Data Specification format.
• Lead in the development of custom map applications and solutions and expand the use of asset management systems.
• Stay abreast of new trends and innovations in the field of asset management software, automated data collection, GIS software, database design, and related hardware and software.
• Advise BTD’s asset management team members with quality control of asset data collection.
• Leverage ArcGIS or open-source mapping tools for in-depth spatial analysis & solutions.
• Contribute to data modeling, analyses, and reports of findings and recommendations.

• Three or more (3+) years of working professional experience or equivalent in emerging technology, operations research, transportation planning, analytics, or a related field.
• High School Diploma or equivalent required. Associate, Bachelor's, or Master's degree preferred in urban planning, operations research, applied sciences (e.g., an engineering discipline), computer science, or a related field.
• Working knowledge of the principles of asset/work order management systems, such as Cartegraph.
• Knowledge of MUTCD compliance.
• Experience with ESRI suite of tools (ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online). Experience with Mapbox and OpenStreetMap is a plus.
• Ability to work with information from external relational databases.
• Familiarity with geospatial concepts and data, as well as related analysis and visualization tools such as PostGIS, QGIS, or ArcGIS, is a plus.
• Familiarity with multimodal models (such as Gemini and Claude) and prompt engineering.
• Familiarity with scripting languages like Python is a plus.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, including mapping of specific business needs to appropriate solutions in a data-focused context.
• Demonstrated success in learning new skills as needed to succeed in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to analyze data and use the information to meet business analysis requirements and technical design specifications; to define projects, manage project scope, monitor execution, report status, and resolve issues.
• Ability to exercise good judgment and focus on detail as required by the job.
• Experience in the public sector (especially in local government) is highly desirable.
• Experience with prototyping and demonstrated comfort with an experimental approach.

BOSTON RESIDENCY REQUIRED

Terms:

Union/Salary Plan/Grade: EXM/MM2-8
Hours per week: 35