The Transportation Engineering concentration is offered in both thesis and non-thesis options. Students are required to take CE 551, 552, 553, and 558. A seminar course of CE 550 should be taken each semester also. Several advanced courses in Transportation Engineering including CE 547, 554, 556, 651, and 652 are also offered. In addition, special topic courses including intermodal operations, international transportation systems, safety, intelligent transportation system, and sustainability are also periodically offered as CE 595 based on demand. Many courses outside the department are encouraged, including but not limited to, courses from statistics, industrial engineering, geography, and mechanical engineering departments. All courses must be approved by the student’s graduate committee. An oral defense exam is required for the thesis option. All Non-thesis MS students are required to take a culminating written examination. The written exam is offered twice a year – Fall and Spring Terms.
Course Descriptions
Basic principles of rail way transportation, track behavior and design, geometric design of railway lines and terminals, train performance, railway signaling and communications, capacity and operations analysis.
Nature of civil aviation; structure of the airline industry; aircraft characteristics and performance; navigation and air traffic control; airline operations; aviation system planning; aviation emergency management.
Seminar topics in transportation engineering. Research contributions and case histories by graduate students and engineers and scientists from the professional community.
Characteristics of human, vehicle, and roadway in transportation system; microscopic and macroscopic traffic models; elements of transportation/highway safety.
Operation and management of the surface transportation system including freeways and arterials; traffic control systems including traffic signal design and operation; traffic control devices including signing and markings.
Functional and geometric design and rural and urban roads of all classes; subdivision layout; configuration of urban roads of all classes; techniques for access control; freeway interchanges and street intersections; and parking.
Characteristics of transit modes – conventional, informal, and paratransit; operational design of transit services: route planning and scheduling; cost analysis; traveler behavior; performance evaluation; data collection methods; organization and financing.
The systems approach and its application to transportation planning and engineering. Production functions and cost minimization. Utility theory and demand modeling. Transportation network analysis and equilibrium assignment. Decision analysis and evaluation of transportation projects.
Data collection and analysis as basis for accident prevention on control programs; roadside hardware design and crash testing.
Hands-on laboratory and field experiences in computer and information technology for modeling and analysis of transportation problems.
Preparation of transportation as elements of comprehensive development plans. Analysis of relationship between various transportation modes and between transportation and other community features. Use of planning process to establish existing travel patterns, modeling of demand, proposing alternatives and evaluation.
Strategic planning of intermodal transportation systems; how strategic planning pertains to freight transportation. Freight logistics, intermodal technology, and intermodal terminal operations. Intermodal freight transportation policy, planning, and operations systems and programs.
Transportation systems worldwide provide economic and social opportunities, but they also create well-known problems of congestion, safety and environmental degradation. This course will examine how Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), can enhance mobility, reduce death and injury and protect environmental resources. Such systems apply information and communication technologies in transportation. The issues to be covered in the course will include systems engineering approach applied to ITS, ITS deployment and transportation operations, transportation system management, traveler response to technologies and information, ITS planning, evaluation, and institutional issues.
Define safety from the perspective of more than one discipline and identify the significant challenges for transportation safety. Describe the roadway, vehicle, environmental and human factors involved in crashes. Explicate human, economic, mobility and other benefits of investing in transportation safety.
A broad range of sustainable transportation and land use planning, design concepts, and applications will be discussed.
The class will address the development of 3-D simulation systems, with emphasis on the following topics: Overview of 3-D simulators: Examples of various simulators, comparison of simulator capabilities; System architecture: Functions to be performed, typical configuration of simulation systems; Physics modeling: Modeling the performance characteristics of transport vehicles, including power, resistance, velocity, and acceleration; 3-D graphics modeling: Representing physical objects in 3-dimensions, terrain modeling, vertex and polygon considerations, texture attributes, object location and orientation, shadow and lighting effects; Environmental effects: Incorporating sound, weather, time of day and other factors into simulations Data and file structures for simulation systems; Frame rendering: View orientation and field, rendering and refresh; Computer hardware: CPU, memory, storage, display power, and interface considerations; Human interface: Constructing the operator environment; interfacing controls to the software, providing auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic feedback; Networked client-server applications: Applications for networking in 3-D simulation, client-server configurations, use of the internet for connectivity; System development: System design, steps in the development process, composition of the development team, testing and evaluation; System application to experiments/training: Experiment design, scenario development, data collection and analysis. Students will use a number of software packages to demonstrate concepts presented in the class, including development of 3-D models and terrain and simulation scenarios for several simulation systems.
Topics on mathematical, statistical, operations research, or computer science techniques that may be applied to modeling and analysis of transportation systems.
Advanced topics of application of mathematical, statistical and computer science techniques in modeling and analysis of transportation systems.