A Transportation Engineering Curriculum for the Future

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A Transportation Engineering Curriculum for the
Future
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Background

• Basis for my remarks
• Over 20 years of involvement in engineering
  education as a short course developer and a
  university classroom instructor
• Over 10 years as a university faculty
  member/academic administrator
• Academic officer (undergraduate and graduate)
• ABET review coordinator
• Past chair of the ITE Education Council

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Traditional Civil Engineer

• Construction
• Environmental
• Geotechnical
• Hydrology/Hydraulics
• Materials
• Structures
• Surveying and Mapping
• Transportation

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Typical Transportation Engineer

• Design (Highway)
• Operations (Highway)
• Planning (Car/Truck/Transit?)
• Other Modes? (Peds? Bikes? Transit?)
• Other Operating Schemes? (ITS? Supply Chain
  Management?)

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Engineering Knowledge Gaps

• Users
• Needs, Wants, and Desires
• Capabilities and Limitations
• Vehicles
• Capabilities and Limitations
• Operating Environment
• Weather/Surface Conditions
• Lighting

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Beyond Tradition

• Mechanical Engineering
• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Engineering
• Computer Science
• Industrial Engineering
• Supply Chain Management

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Business Requirements

• Speaking
• Writing
• Working on a team
• Resolving conflicts
• Handling the media
• Managing resources (e.g. budgets, personnel,
  facilities, equipment, etc.)

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Transportation Engineerof the Future 1

• Construction ---gt Facilities Management
• Environmental
• Geotechnical
• Hydrology/Hydraulics
• Materials
• Structures
• Surveying and Mapping
• Transportation

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Transportation Engineerof the Future
2Planning, Design, and Operations

• Peds
• Bikes
• Cars
• Trucks
• Buses
• Rail Transit

• Streets/Highways
• Fixed Guideway
• Air
• Water
• Pipelines
• Telecommunications

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Transportation Engineerof the Future 3

• Machine design
• Tribology/meteorology
• Command, control, communications, and
  intelligence (C3I)
• Lighting
• Operations research
• Human factors/ergonomics
• Supply chain management

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Transportation Engineer of the Future 4

• Speech communications
• Technical writing
• Human resource management
• Media relations
• Mediation
• Marketing

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Transportation Engineer of the Future 5

• 5th Semester
• Transportation Systems Engineering
• Contemporary Skills for Business Professionals
• Supply Chain Management
• Human Factors Engineering
• Mechanical Systems Design

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Transportation Engineer of the Future 6

• 6th Semester
• Highway Engineering
• Transportation Planning
• Urban Transportation
• Vehicle Road Dynamics
• Automatic Control Systems

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Transportation Engineer of the Future 7

• 7th Semester
• Traffic Operations
• Introduction to Operations Research
• Introduction to Embedded Microcontrollers
• Non-Motorized Transportation
• Introduction to Air, Rail, and Water Transport

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Transportation Engineer of the Future 8

• 8th Semester
• Transportation Design
• Fundamentals of Computer Vision
• Fundamentals of Air Pollution
• Computer Aided Lighting Design and Analysis
• Management and Organization

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Transportation Engineer of the Future 9

• Can we train everyone in everything?
• Role of the technical specialist
• Role of the generalist/system integrator

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Summary

• In the future, transportation engineers with a
  traditional civil engineering background wont be
  able to cut it in the transportation
  profession.
• We need to change how we educate, train, and
  maintain the competency of transportation
  engineers.