| Description | Ensuring the safe and efficient movement of passengers and goods on our streets and highways is a critical component of urban economic development and quality of life. Meeting this challenge is the central mandate for traffic engineering professionals. In this unit, students will gain a strong understanding of the major roles, responsibilities and technical expectations of such professionals, which are required by both public and private sector employers in this field. Initially, we define a framework/context for traffic engineering and management, which forms the basis for subsequent modules. We then focus on those characteristics and limitations of the users of the road traffic system (humans and vehicles), which underpin engineering considerations. We then gain theoretical and practical understanding of basic traffic variables (speed, density, flow) and analytical techniques such as gap acceptance, queuing theory, capacity analysis and shockwave analysis. Following this, we will see how to design key system elements (alignments, intersections, cross-sections) for a variety of road users including cars, trucks, buses, cyclists and pedestrians. Finally, we consider how we go about identifying and rectifying problems in various parts of the road network and discuss how we can manage travel demand in the interest of transport sustainability. Student learning will be assessed through tutorial/exam-style questions to assess basic understanding and analysis skills, an individual essay-type assignment and a group-based project typical of those conducted by traffic engineers using a professional software package (SIDRA) to gain an appreciation of how these principles are applied in practice. The unit will be of particular value to students majoring in transportation, logistics and urban planning and design. |
