CIVL 2030 - Introduction to Transportation Engineering

Introduction to basic concepts in transportation engineering including planning, design, and operations. Introduces the challenges and issues in modeling transportation problems. Studies of various concepts related to the design of highway facilities, level of service, and demand for transportation services. Concepts related to signal optimization. Policy implications. Basics of transportation planning.

This course is mainly oriented toward engineering students interested in learning the fundamentals of how transportation systems are designed, planned, and operated. This course is intended as an introductory transportation class for all interested engineering and science students. The course is structured upon the basic objective to motivate students to pursue a deeper understanding of transportation systems. To facilitate this, the course requires the students to have some confidence in basic computer skills such as spreadsheets (excel), data analysis, and basic undergraduate mathematics and physics. Students are expected to actively participate in the class. Experiential learning and teamwork is emphasized throughout the course.

Introduction

• Course outline
• Highway engineering and traffic analysis

Principles of Highway Design

• Road vehicle performance
  • Tractive Effort and Resistance
  • Principle of Braking
• Geometric design of highways
  • Vertical alignment
  • Horizontal alignment

Traffic Analysis and Operations

• Elements of traffic analysis
• Traffic stream models
• Queuing theory
• Freeway Level of Service Analysis
  • Basic freeway segments
  • Multilane rural and suburban highways
• Signalized Intersection Analysis
  • Signalized intersection analysis and LOS
  • Optimal traffic signal timing

Traffic Forecasting

• Principles of traffic forecasting
  • Trip generation
  • Mode and destination choice
  • Highway route choice

This course has been offered in: Spring, 2020; Spring 2021; Spring 2022; Spring 2023