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Introduction

This course introduces students to various transportation systems, including highways, rail, air, and water. It explores the issues and challenges faced in transportation, such as traffic congestion, safety, equality of access, environmental impact, and the incorporation of new technologies. The course also covers topics related to transportation engineering, such as intersection and signal design, geometric design, operations analysis, and transportation planning.

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Introduction

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  1. Introduction CE331 Transportation Engineering Fall 2013 Dr. Reg Souleyrette

  2. Transportation Systems • Highway Auto, truck, bus, bicycle • Rail • Air • Water • Continuous flow system Pipeline, belt

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. Issues and Challenges (continued) • Equality of access With auto being the dominant travel mode: • Low income people, elderly, and handicapped may be underserved

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. What do transportation engineers do?

  9. Course Outline • Intersection and signals • Unsignalized intersection • Signal timing design • Geometric design • Sight distance • Horizontal and vertical alignment

  10. Course Outline (cont’d) • Operations analysis • Traffic flow fundamentals • Traffic studies • Capacity analysis • Transportation planning • Four-step procedure for demand forecasting • Other modes

  11. Characteristics of Driver, Vehicle, and Road

  12. 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)

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. 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

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