Background
The program in transportation engineering emphasizes advanced study and research in the application of quantitative methods for analysis, planning, design, and operation of major modes of transportation systems. Also special emphasis is given to major urban and regional transportation problems, transportation network analysis and evaluation, travel demand forecasting, traffic operation and control, traffic flow modeling and simulation, highway capacity analysis, intelligent transportation systems.
Department provides a focus for each student's program through course work and research in transportation engineering projects.
Courses
16:180:529 Security and Safety in Maritime Transportation and Port Operations (3)
Overview of the principles of vulnerability assessment of critical transportation infrastructure. Overview of international maritime transportation and port security and safety codes. Federal and industry maritime transportation, port and container security initiatives. Overview of principles of onboard vessel and marine terminal operations relating to safety and security. Technologies to assist maritime and port security and potential for implementation. Modeling and simulation techniques to assist maritime and port security planning. Port Facility Security Plans and marine terminal operations safety. Coordination of Authorities involved in port security.
16:180:530 (F) Maritime Transportation (3)
Supply-demand; liner shipping industry; management and operation of the port sector, environmental aspects, including dredged material management and ship-generated marine pollution; security problems and initiatives in maritime transportation.
16:180:531 Traffic Engineering (3)
Techniques and hardware used for real-time traffic-data collection, sources of errors and sample-size determination; design parameters, including economic and human factors, as well as environmental constraints; experiment design for model-development and transportation-operations analyses; deterministic and stochastic models of traffic processes, including queuing theory, headway distributions, and gap acceptance; stream-flow characteristics, including car-following and multilane models, bottleneck, fuel consumption, and noise models; models for automatic vehicle control; network operations; models for modes of traffic; traffic control, short-term planning, and system evaluation.
16:180:532 Transportation Planning (3)
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) projects in the United States, Europe, and Japan; advanced traveler-information systems; advanced traffic-management systems; automated highway systems; commercial vehicle operations; operational field tests; system architecture; human factors; safety; institutional and legal issues; multimodal ITS applications; modeling ITS as hybrid systems; evaluation and selection of candidate Intelligent Transportation Systems.
16:180:533 Traffic Operations (3)
Real-time transportation operations; transportation-system evaluation; demand modeling; time-sensitive transportation problems, including real-time traffic control and networkwide feedback control; linear and nonlinear network optimization; deterministic and stochastic queuing models of the control of rush hour traffic, traffic-signal timing, and ramp metering; incident management; operations; strategic versus tactical transportation infrastructure planning; operation of parking facilities; congestion management strategies; automatic vehicle control.
16:180:534 Design of Transportation Facilities (3)
Software and hardware to design, test, and evaluate transportation systems; field studies, development and use of computer models, and instrumentation of small- and full-scale hardware models; geographic-information systems, artificial intelligence, and computer graphics for design and evaluation; optimization software for vehicle scheduling and routing and traffic assignment; visual-simulation development tools for rapid prototyping of selected transportation systems; simulated life-cycle analysis and validation techniques; data acquisition and control; advanced data- visualization tools to test and evaluate developed models.
16:180:536 (S) Transportation Systems Analysis (3)
Systems analysis and decision making using concepts from economics, engineering, public policy analysis, operations research, and management science; application to transportation systems; and use of computer applications and case studies. Prerequisites: Calculus and basic probability.
16:180:537 Intelligent Transportation Systems (3)
Focuses on Advanced Traveler-Information Systems (ATIS) and advanced traffic-management components of Intelligent Transpor-tation Systems (ITS). Students also learn about Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO), Advanced Vehicle-Control Systems (AVCS), and Advanced Rural Transportation Systems (ARTS).
16:180:538 (S) Freight Transportation Systems (3)
Freight transportation demand and supply models, freight network modeling, freight flow forecasting, operating, service, and cost characteristics. Case studies in the analysis and design of freight transportation systems.
16:180:539 (S) Advanced Transportation Economics and Modeling (3)
Applications of economic theory to such topics as transport demand analysis, transport pricing, welfare considerations, and transport policy evaluation. Prerequisites: 14:540:343; 14:180:364 or equivalent.
16:180:540 Port Planning, Management and Operations (3)
Overview of port planning, management and operations with strong reference to terminal processes and engineering aspects of port development, port functions and management models, port pricing and financing, port security and safety, environmental management and human resources management in ports
16:180:551 (S) Railroad Transportation System (3)
Liu
Fundamentals of railroad transportation and engineering. The topics include railroad efficiency and economics, track infrastructure, rail vehicle, traffic control system, highway-rail grade crossing and railroad safety.
16:180:552 (S) Engineering Risk Analysis in Multimodal Transportation Systems (3)
Fundamentals of engineering risk analysis in multimodal transportation systems. The topics include probabilistic risk analysis, Bayesian approach, multi-attribute decision analysis, transportation safety, quantitative risk communication and risk visualization.
16:180:554 (F) Sustainable Transportation infrastructure (3)
The course contents include: 1) general concepts of sustainability; 2) sustainability rating tools for transportation infrastructure projects; 3) life-cycle assessment approach and its limitations and challenges; and 4) case studies of pavement LCA for material, design, construction, maintenance, and use phases.
16:180:555 (F) Railway Track Engineering and Safety (3)
Course topics include rails, ties, track layout and geometry; ballast and subgrade; ties; fastenings; track analysis and design; special trackwork; grade crossings; track standards; and inspection, condition assessment, and life cycle asset management. There may be field trip(s) to observe railroad track and components.