Module 1: Introduction to Transportation Engineering

Lecture 1 Introduction to transportation engineering

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Other important disciplines

In addition to the four major disciplines of transportation, there are several other important disciplines that are being evolved in the past few decades. Although it is difficult to categorize them into separate well defined disciplines because of the significant overlap, it may be worth the effort to highlight the importance given by the transportation community. They can be enumerated as below:

1. Public transportation:  Public transportation or mass transportation deals with study of the transportation system that meets the travel need of several people by sharing a vehicle. Generally this focuses on the urban travel by bus and rail transit. The major topics include characteristics of various modes; planning, management and operations; and policies for promoting public transportation.
2. Financial and economic analysis Transportation facilities require large capital investments. Therefore it is imperative that who ever invests money should get the returns. When government invests in transportation, its objective is not often monetary returns; but social benefits. The economic analysis of transportation project tries to quantify the economic benefit which includes saving in travel time, fuel consumption, etc. This will help the planner in evaluating various projects and to optimally allocate funds. On the contrary, private sector investments require monetary profits from the projects. Financial evaluation tries to quantify the return from a project.
3. Environmental impact assessment The depletion of fossil fuels and the degradation of the environment has been a severe concern of the planners in the past few decades. Transportation; in spite of its benefits to the society is a major contributor to the above concern. The environmental impact assessment attempts in quantifying the environmental impacts and tries to evolve strategies for the mitigation and reduction of the impact due to both construction and operation. The primary impacts are fuel consumption, air pollution, and noise pollution.
4. Accident analysis and reduction One of the silent killers of humanity is transportation. Several statistics evaluates that more people are killed due to transportation than great wars and natural disasters. This discipline of transportation looks at the causes of accidents, from the perspective of human, road, and vehicle and formulate plans for the reduction.
5. Intelligent transport system With advent to computers, communication, and vehicle technology, it is possible in these days to operate transportation system much effectively with significant reduction in the adverse impacts of transportation. Intelligent transportation system offers better mobility, efficiency, and safety with the help of the state-of-the-art-technology.

In addition disciplines specific to various modes are also common. This includes railway engineering, port and harbor engineering, and airport engineering.