The Public Lands Transportation Fellows program, herein referred to as PLTF, provides fellowships to outstanding graduates in a transportation-related field to spend eleven months total working directly with staff of Federal Land Management Agencies on key visitor transportation issues. The PLTF program began in 2012 and was modeled after the very successful Transportation Scholars program managed by the National Park Foundation (NPF) that serves the National Park Service (NPS).
The PLTF Program gives recent (sometimes current) masters and doctoral graduates in a transportation related engineering or planning field a unique opportunity for career development and public service. Successful applicants are placed at a federal land unit facing a transportation issue to facilitate a transportation planning or implementation project. A fellow is assigned to work directly with staff at a unit or headquarters/region/field office for 10 months (and an additional month off site completing their report). The assigned projects help the land units develop transportation solutions that preserve valuable resources and enhance the visitor experience.

The program has three goals, which are to:
• Encourage emerging transportation professionals to pursue their career serving federal lands.
• Provide much-needed transportation expertise to FLMA units and regions to help them address critical transportation issues.
• Support the development, implementation and evaluation of viable alternative transportation for visitors to FLMAs.

The 2018 class of fellows will be employees of the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University Bozeman, but will be stationed at the following three refuges:
• San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex in San Diego, California.
• Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge Complex near Denver, Colorado.
• Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge near Detroit, Michigan.