Introduction

CE331 Transportation Engineering

Fall 2013
Dr. Reg Souleyrette
 Transportation Systems

 Highway
Auto, truck, bus, bicycle
 Rail
 Air

 Water

 Continuous flow system

Pipeline, belt
Issues and Challenges

 Traffic congestion
 Why? Demand > supply
 Usual response: more capacity
• Limitations: funding, environmental impact
 Alternatives:
• ITS initiatives: ATIS
• Traffic control: signal coordination, ramp
metering
• Planning: land use, congestion pricing
Issues and Challenges
(cont’d)
 Traffic safety
 Accidents (Crashes) are of concern
for all modes of transportation
 Most visible in commercial air
transportation or rail with mass
casualties
 Auto crash fatalities are decreasing
 Commercial aviation fatalities are
relatively low and quite variable
 Issues and Challenges
(continued)
 Equality of access
With auto being the dominant travel mode:
 Low income people, elderly, and handicapped
may be underserved
Issues and Challenges
(cont’d)
 Environmental impact
 System level impact:
• Air quality
• energy and land consumption
 Site specific impact:
• Noise
• Water quality
• Displacement of residents and business
Issues and Challenges
(cont’d)
 New technology
 How to incorporate?
• Electric cars, natural gas, fuel cell
 Intelligent transportation system (ITS)
• Improve safety
• Reduce congestion
• Improve mobility and accessibility
• Improve economic productivity
What do transportation
engineers do?
Course Outline

 Intersection and signals

 Unsignalized intersection
 Signal timing design

 Geometric design
 Sight distance
 Horizontal and vertical alignment
 Course Outline (cont’d)
 Operations analysis
 Traffic flow fundamentals
 Traffic studies
 Capacity analysis

 Transportation planning
 Four-step procedure for demand forecasting
 Other modes
Characteristics of
Driver, Vehicle, and
Road
Characteristics of Driver

 Drivers’ skills and perceptual abilities

vary with person, physical condition
 Perception-Reaction Process
 Four sub-processes:
• Perception (mostly visual)
• Identification (understand the stimulus)
• Emotion (decide what action to take in
response)
• Reaction (executing the action)
Characteristics of Driver
(cont’d)
 Perception-Reaction Process (cont’d)
 Total time for the process is called
perception-reaction (P-R) time
 P-R time varies from 0.5 to 7.0 sec
 AASHTO recommendation:
P-R time = 2.5 sec
** this covers 90% of drivers under most
highway conditions
 Very important when determining
stopping sight distance
Characteristics of Vehicle

 Physical dimensions
 Length – parking space length
 Width – lane width
 Height – vertical clearance

 Weight – structural design of surface,

guideway, and bridge
 Acceleration/deceleration
characteristics – maximum grade
Characteristics of Road

 Min. radius of horizontal curve

 Max. rate of superelevation

 Max. grade

 Min. grade and cross-slope

 Min. length of vertical curve

 Other