Associate
Booz Allen Hamilton
Total years of experience :12 years, 10 Months
Ettefagh has expertise in transportation modeling, research and analysis in the fields of Intelligent Transportation Systems (connected and autonomous vehicles), statistical data analysis, business cases, cost benefit analysis, risk and sensitivity analysis (e.g. Crystal Ball), project management, transit asset management, advance Excel modeling and simulation, Access, Tableau, MicroStation, MATLAB, R, TransCAD, and Business Intelligence (BI) tools (e.g. Microsoft’s Power BI).
During the past 4 years, Ms. Ettefagh has supported U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and a variety of other federal clients in transportation engineering, data analytics, economic analysis and financial modeling, and grant management areas. Examples of these engagements are listed below.
Ms. Ettefagh was a graduate research assistant at the Campus Transit Lab based at The Ohio States University’s Campus Area Bus Service (CABS). She worked on research areas relating to planning, scheduling, and operation of public transportation systems using Clever Devices’ Automatic Passenger Counter (APC) and Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) data. Specifically, she was involved in data collection and analysis, transit impact and sustainability, transit modeling using statistical programs, and traveler information systems.
During her two years of research at the Transit Lab, she also analyzed large data from a two-wave online survey conducted from the Ohio State University’s campus community. The first survey was conducted before the implementation of the real-time passenger information systems. The second survey was conducted after the information system had been installed and reached a steady state. This data was used to model and investigate the effects of providing real-time passenger information system on individuals’ attitudes and perception towards Campus Area Bus Services and other public transportation operators.
Future Forecasts, US Department of Transportation
Supported Automation Enabling Technologies project by researching the most recent advances in wireless communications, positioning, mapping, localization, timing, tracking, sensing, and other technologies that enable vehicle automation. The monthly literature reviews and technical reports covered vehicle automation needs, trends, gaps, and potential recommendations and guidance to USDOT with respect to technologies necessary to advance vehicle automation efforts. The goal of this effort was to help shape the research plan for the USDOT automation-connected vehicles program.
•Dynamic Mobility Application (DMA) evaluation Project, U.S. Department of Transportation, Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO)
Supported Dynamic Mobility Applications (DMA) Evaluation Project by developing national level cost and impact evaluation of six DMA connected vehicle bundles (i.e. Intelligent Network Flow Optimization, Multi-Modal Intelligent Traffic Signal Systems, Integrated Dynamic Transit Operations, Freight Advanced Traveler Information System, Response Emergency Staging Communication Uniform Management and Evaluation, and Enable Advanced Traveler Information System). Each bundle consists of multiple connected vehicle applications related to transit, freight, emergency responders, etc. The primary impact of these applications is to improve mobility and safety. Ms. Ettefagh worked on a nationwide Benefit/Cost Analysis (BCA) of each application using CO_PILOT tool and results from impact assessments from application demonstrations and prototypes to evaluate the value of the entire program on a National Scale. The extrapolated national-level impacts and costs of DMA applications over a time frame reflective of a staged nation-wide application deployment is published in a final report.
•Response, Emergency Staging, Communications, Uniform Management, and Evacuation (R.E.S.C.U.M.E.) Impact Assessment, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
Supported the R.E.S.C.U.M.E. bundle as part of the Dynamic Mobility Applications (DMA) that targets the improvement of traffic safety and mobility during crashes and other emergencies that affects the highway network. The application bundle employs vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) in addition to mobile communications technologies that are used by existing emergency responder dispatch system. Ms. Ettefagh supported the impact assessment of the prototypes of Incident Zone and Response Staging applications.
•Next Generation 911 (NG911) Cost Study, National 911 Program
As an experienced financial analyst/cost modeler, Ms. Ettefagh supported the lifecycle cost estimation and data analysis efforts of implementing NG911 IT systems at the national level. The cost study provides a framework and a methodology to measure the progress made towards implementing NG911 on a nationwide scale and accounted for multiple deployment methods. A technical architecture served as the basis to produce values for the full lifecycle costs of implementing NG911 from planning, through acquisition and implementation, to operation and maintenance costs, while highlighting the main cost drivers for this transition and potential cost saving areas. Relevant assumptions, algorithms, and results are documented in the final technical report. The results of this cost study along with NG911 technical architecture framework will be submitted to congress.
•Transportation Economic Requirement Model (TERM), Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
Ms. Ettefagh supports the development and use of the Transportation Economic Requirements Model (TERM), a transportation-focused cost model that forecasts the state of good repair (SGR) for the Nation’s transit assets based on trends of funding and recapitalization requirements over time. She has been supporting the development of economic analysis business case models by designing and developing advanced MS Excel spreadsheets and models and MS Access databases. She is also supporting the redesign and development of the Transit-related content of the biennially published Conditions & Performance Report to the U.S. Congress.
•Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Enterprise Services Center (ESC)
For a period of 7 months, Ms. Ettefagh was involved with supporting the Financial Management and IT Support for Department of Labor (DOL) to support a stable operations and maintenance environment, allowing Government to more fully leverage their financial system for day-to-day transactions and end of month and end of year financial closeouts and moving to ESC shared services. As part of the Program Management Office (PMO), she managed a three-year cost estimating task. She created a cost model to break down the $60M project by incorporated the Service Level Agreements between ESC and DOL and the required FTEs for the next 3 years. She also supported other PMO activities such as project management, financial management, risk identification matrix, SharePoint, and other required monthly reporting and deliverables.
Ms. Ettefagh was the lead modeler for an Independent Cost Estimate (ICE) for the Regional Class Research Vessel (RCRV) for the NSF Division of Ocean Sciences. She used a Ship Work Breakdown Structure (SWBS) and Cost Estimating Relationships (CERs) to research and model different costs, construction schedule and phasing, data normalization and apply learning curve methodology. Her model performed Monte Carlo analysis to incorporate risks and uncertainties associated with building three research vessels for four different construction scenarios.
•Monitoring and Technical Assistance, Federal Rail Administration (FRA)
Ms. Ettefagh is supporting the Scheduled Monitoring activities of selected Amtrak projects which are funded with capital grants. The monitoring is part of FRA’s project monitoring requirements and it allows FRA to determine the scope/schedule/budget statues of the project, the contents and quality of the project files, and to identify areas for improvement or technical assistance. Ms. Ettefagh is performing Desktop Reviews and Site Visits to gather information and produce the final checklists and report.
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courses: International Cost Estimation and Analysis Association (ICEAA) Certified Engineering in Training (Since