State transportation agencies (STA) are relying on needs-based construction, engineering, and inspection (CEI) consultants as a primary solution to their staffing deficits. While other studies have examined the reasons STAs hire CEI consultants at an agency level, prior research has not identified potential patterns between project characteristics and STA staffing choices. A national survey was administered to examine how the use of CEI consultants differs by project type, work type, complexity level, and the authority level of inspectors. A rigorous model-building variety of Chi-squared analyses, Cochran’s Q tests, McNemar tests, and binomial logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. This research found that STAs are more likely to use consultants on projects with utilities, drainage, roadway, and/or grading because they either do not have enough staff in-house or do not have the experience in-house to complete these projects. Additionally, most STAs do not grant senior inspector consultants the same authority level as their in-house counterparts. Generally, this research indicates that socio-economic and political factors have both short- and long-term effects on staffing choices in public transportation projects and studying project characteristics might help shed more light on the effects of these decisions. Specifically, the results indicate a need for both the private and public sectors to collaborate and share knowledge to preserve institutional knowledge within agencies. These results suggest that further research into staffing trends and project characteristics is warranted.

州交通机构 (STA) 依靠基于需求的建筑、工程和检验 (CEI) 顾问作为解决人员短缺的主要解决方案。虽然其他研究已经研究了 STA 在机构层面聘请 CEI 顾问的原因，但先前的研究并未确定项目特征与 STA 人员​​选择之间的潜在模式。进行了一项全国性调查，以检查 CEI 顾问的使用如何因项目类型、工作类型、复杂性级别和检查员的权限级别而异。使用严格的卡方分析、Cochran's Q 检验、McNemar 检验和二项逻辑回归模型等多种模型构建方法来分析数据。这项研究发现，STA 更有可能在公用事业、排水、道路、和/或评分，因为他们要么没有足够的内部员工，要么没有完成这些项目的内部经验。此外，大多数 STA 不授予高级检查员顾问与其内部同行相同的权限级别。总的来说，这项研究表明，社会经济和政治因素对公共交通项目的人员配置选择有短期和长期影响，研究项目特征可能有助于更多地了解这些决策的影响。具体而言，结果表明私营和公共部门需要合作和共享知识，以保护机构内的机构知识。这些结果表明，有必要进一步研究人员配备趋势和项目特征。